The AESD and Sustainable Agricultural Development (SDGs)

The work of the Agricultural Engineering Services Division (AESD) of the Ministry of Agriculture in St. Lucia aligns with several United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as follows:

1. SDG 2 – Zero Hunger

AESD promotes sustainable agricultural practices through improved land and water management, mechanization, and training, all of which directly contribute to increasing food production, ensuring food security, and supporting smallholder farmers.

2. SDG 6 – Clean Water and Sanitation

The Water Use and Management Unit focuses on the efficient use and conservation of water resources, including rainwater harvesting and irrigation design, which supports sustainable water management in agriculture.

3. SDG 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production

By promoting sustainable land use, efficient water and resource management, and minimizing the environmental impact of agricultural practices, AESD supports more responsible and sustainable production methods.

4. SDG 13 – Climate Action

The Division encourages climate-smart agriculture, including resilient irrigation systems, biogas digester designs, and sustainable land management—all key to mitigating and adapting to climate change.

5. SDG 15 – Life on Land

Through the Land Resource Management Unit, AESD actively works on land conservation and soil health, helping combat desertification, land degradation, and biodiversity loss.

6. SDG 9 – Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

By designing and implementing modern agricultural infrastructure such as aquaponics, hydroponics, and mechanized solutions, AESD fosters innovation and supports resilient agricultural infrastructure development

Introduction

In the period of April to September 2022, we realized the need for the Objectives of the Agricultural Engineering Services to be refined. This needed intervention would help to align the activities of the division in an efficient manner to improve the impact of the AESD, while optimising the division’s resources, and thereby reducing the cost of operations.

Objectives of the AESD

General Objective:

The general objective of AESD, is to guide the optimization of agricultural land and water resources, to sustainably facilitate the increase in agricultural productivity, and reduce social, environmental and economic cost of production in farming systems. This includes identifying limitations to agricultural productivity, recommending and/or designing sustainable interventions to remove or reduce these limitations, supervising implementation of these interventions, and therefore cause the increase in the efficiency, sustainability, productivity and profitability of agricultural production systems.

The specific Objectives:

1. To guide the reduction of agricultural land degradation in production systems and facilitate the improvement in fertility and productivity, through agricultural land use planning, the design of appropriate soil conservation, biofuel, fertiliser and drainage interventions, and appropriate production system technology transfer.
2. To guide the optimisation of energy usage, through appropriate labour saving technology transfer, and the provision of land preparation services, for the improvement in productive land potential in agricultural production systems.
3. To guide the optimization of agricultural water resources through irrigation scheduling, appropriate soilless cultivation technology transfer, and the design of irrigation, hydroponic and aquaponics systems.