Expert urges Gov’t to provide funding for research and development in agriculture

Government has been urged to inject much-needed funds into research and development in agriculture and bioscience.

Dr Sonia Peter, Executive Director of the Biocultural Research and Education Programme issued the challenge as she spoke to journalists during a tour of a biodiversity project being conducted at Neils Plantation, St Michael on Friday.

The project, which is part of the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) Small Grants Programme, is one of many being funded by the United Nations Development Programme on the sustainability, conservation awareness, and profitability around several native crop and plant species on the island.

Though Dr Peter acknowledged that progress has been seen in many areas in agriculture in recent years, the creation of a national funding programme for scientists would go a long way in creating a robust plant and crop output for domestic and international markets.

She told journalists: “I know that we have a Ministry [of Agriculture] that is dealing with innovation, but I am saying that there is wider capacity out there, and what I would like to see is the Government commit to having a scientific research fund, which will have them establish a scientific research unit [with] laboratories, where we can have scientists come in, book the facilities for a period of time so they can execute some of the research they are interested in.

“I’m a little cynical about panels and committees, but maybe in terms of rationalizing the process, we could have a panel that will prioritize proposals submitted, and see where we can go in terms of this innovation and development.”

Dr Peter, who has a background in medicinal chemistry, spectroscopy and organic chemistry, stressed that the lack of investment from Government into targeted bioscience research was currently doing the country a disservice, given the investment seen in bioscience within foreign economies, in particular in green space and floral based sectors.

She said: “If you do research on the internet, you would hear about the botanical industry increase, and being worth billions of dollars, as persons look for alternative ways of healing themselves. It is multifaceted – nowadays I am reading that the Japanese are recommending that if you are stressed, go walk in a green space, so we are developing an ethnobotanical green space at Botanical Gardens.

“In there we are going to have many of the plants that we have identified that were useful during slavery, as well as other floral species, and we can tell [locals] or tourists, come into our botanical gardens, we have something here for you…it is multifaceted, opportunities are fast, but the right capacity has to be engaged to make sure that we have quality products out there, and the science is behind it. So when you say something, you know it has value behind it.”

One such plant that is underutilized and harvested here is aloe vera, Dr Peter, said adding that with several products within the beauty industry having aloe often as its base ingredient, Barbados has a great opportunity to leverage the abundance of the indigenous crop.

Dr Peter said: “We understand how aloe grows, the myriad of products we can make, it, however, requires the foundation work, so that we build up a catalogue, that we can go to investors and tell them, here is one of the things that you can invest in. Once we are integrated into the tourism sector where we know our market is guaranteed, we know it will sit well. Within an upscale market as well, we must not shy away from upscale markets.” (SB)