Stakeholders in the 2022 Crop Over Festival have hailed it as a success despite the many challenges faced by the country.And Chief Executive Officer of the National Cultural Foundation (NCF) Carol Roberts-Reifer has emphasised the “mammoth effort” it took to stage the festival in a short time and during the COVID-19 pandemic.She made the comment this morning during a press conference where she was joined by some major participants in the festival who all spoke in glowing terms about the festival.Roberts-Reifer recalled. “We got word that we could present a concept brief for Crop Over [in] late February. We went to the public led by the minister on March 22, and our first events occurred in May.“When we all do the calculations we can see what a mammoth effort it took to get to the public both locally, regionally and internationally in such a short space of time. But not only to get there but to get there with a product that by all reports has been heavily endorsed by all participants,” she said during a press conference held at the NCF headquarters.This morning musical director of the National Youth Steel Orchestra Lowrey Worrell; tent manager of C.O.Williams House of Soca, Sharon Carew-White and curator of the Central Bank Crop Over Visual Arts Exhibition, Oneka Small, were full of praise for this year’s festivities.Worrell, a music educator, said the pan programme on the island was growing. He said among the 90-member group were some who had been recruited through the Pan in the Schools programme, which was initiated this year by the NCF.