What I was told and to a lesser extent what I observed about Uncle Fred over this period was that he was a free spirit who was able to circumvent the boundaries of discipline imposed by his father, often aided and abetted by his siblings, to express himself fully and indeed to enjoy life as he perceived it.
Our vision is to respond not only to the needs of global food entrepreneurs who are seeking a favourable entrepreneurial development climate, but also to inculcate in the minds of the youngest residents the potential for food entrepreneurial pursuits as an alternative to the traditional avenues of economic activity.
Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group, stated: “No matter how smart you are, or how brilliant or disruptive your business concept might be, every entrepreneur needs a good mentor. Someone, somewhere who has already gone through what you are experiencing right now and who has come out the other side armed with invaluable insights.”
May all governments revisit their development paradigm and stop just paying lip service to enterprise development and regarding it as a solely government initiative.
In conducting the due diligence exercise on the idea, the shepherd makes an assessment of the idea in terms of the potential for growth. It may be that an idea, that is initially not attractive, after some reorientation, may display the potential to be an interesting prospect.
I have also observed over the years that camaraderie fuels teamwork. This was exemplified three weeks ago when this same group mounted a family and fun day at the beautiful environs of La Vega Estate which is a unique combination of a garden centre, plant nursery, nature and recreation park in Trinidad and Tobago. Then last Friday there was the concept of Christmas in July therein making another contribution to building the spirit of camaraderie among the team at the NEDCO head office in Port of Spain.
Let us move forward in faith to build the Caribbean region one agricultural enterprise after another while at the same time addressing the nutritional needs of our people, increasing our foreign exchange earnings and reducing our food import bill.
Shepherding is superior to traditional training courses because it gives custom-designed solutions to problems arising from the development of the enterprise on a timely basis; (7) The innovative seed/equity combination relieves the enterprise of having to be responsible for paying for the shepherding process (shepherd and business advisor) initially.
National Policy Makers to create a user friendly enabling environment to support entrepreneurs on their journey towards enterprise development so that the nation can increase its rate of economic growth, one successful entrepreneur after another.
The economies of Caribbean countries are too small to individually make an effective impact on the world, but together they may be a force which could have significant positive impact.