Agrofest ‘26 opens as ministers tout innovation, food security

The 2026 staging of Agrofest got off to a smooth start on Friday as hundreds of patrons, farmers, exhibitors and schoolchildren converged in Queen’s Park for the official opening of the island’s largest agricultural exhibition.

 

Now in its 21st year, the event began with a ribbon-cutting ceremony before regional and local officials addressed the media, positioning Agrofest as a central platform in reshaping Barbados’ agricultural future.

 

Minister of Agriculture Dr Shantal Munro-Knight described the exhibition as aligned with her early vision for the ministry.

 

“For me, Agrofest is part of at least my emergent vision for the ministry, even just for the few days that I’ve been here,” she said.

 

Referencing this year’s focus on innovation and sustainability, Dr Munro-Knight underscored the importance of building a resilient and commercially viable sector.

“Even your theme this year for Agrofest, which is about innovation, making sure that we have a sustainable and profitable agricultural ecosystem, is very, very important,” she said. “The Ministry of Agriculture, you will see through here, has a number of booths, and you will see that our kind of evolving programme and strategic direction for agriculture is built just on that, on innovation.”

 

Demonstrations at the exhibition include applications of artificial intelligence, vertical farming techniques and small-space cultivation systems aimed at increasing productivity in a land-constrained island.

She revealed that the ministry will soon roll out a schools-based greenhouse programme initiated under former minister Indar Weir.

 

“We’ve actually constructed 13 greenhouses across primary and secondary schools in Barbados, and they will be tasked with producing key crops that we have identified that are going to be important again to building out the sustainable future for agriculture,” she said.

 

For Dr Munro-Knight, Agrofest represents more than an exhibition. It forms part of a wider national and regional agenda.

 

“We talk about the collaboration as well and what do we need to do in terms of bringing other regional partners on board to make sure that we can scale production at a regional level,” she said.

 

“This government is very clear that the agricultural pathway is one, yes, that Barbados will build, but we need to be able to build that in tandem with regional processes.”

 

She added that global economic pressures demand a culturally grounded response.

“We have a global environment that is impressing upon us and very much how we respond to that global environment as a nation has to be built on our cultural platform and that is something that I will be working towards consolidating,” she said.

 

Saint Lucia’s Minister of Agriculture Lisa Jawahir, attending Agrofest for the first time, welcomed the regional collaboration and highlighted the significance of female leadership in agriculture.

 

“It is my absolute pleasure to be here for the first time ever in Barbados for Agrofest,” she said, noting that women have long underpinned Caribbean agriculture.

 

“Women have always been the bedrock of the agricultural society and particularly in St Lucia growing up in the boxing plants (facilities), my mother, my aunts, they were the ones packing the banana boxes, and the gentlemen would go out and sell them and bring the paycheck back to them so they can manage the household,” Jawahir said.

She said the appointment of a female agriculture minister in Barbados aligns with a broader regional shift.

 

“Why it is so meaningful that Barbados has appointed a female minister for agriculture is this year the FAO is launching its year of the female farmer, and I think the timing is quite perfect,” she said, adding that she will address the issue at an upcoming FAO conference in Brazil.

 

She praised the scale and organisation of the Barbadian exhibition.

 

“There are a lot of school children. I’m really excited to see that the children have been incorporated into Agrofest because it cannot just start at the secondary school level. It has to start at the little ones so they understand what food security and self-sufficiency means even at that tender age,” she said.

 

Guyana’s Chief Investment Officer Peter Ramsaroop framed Agrofest within a broader push to reduce the region’s multi-billion dollar food import bill through production and agro-processing.

 

“Supporting AgroFest, Barbados has been one of our greatest friends,” he said.

 

He revealed that Guyana’s 2026 budget made agriculture and agro-processing tax free as part of its strategy to address the region’s import dependence.

 

“Our goal is to ensure that we solve that six to eight billion dollar import bill. When we go on a cruise ship and we see a box of coconut water from Malaysia, it should have upset all of us,” Ramsaroop said.

 

“If we combine our efforts in agro-processing, I think we can resolve quite a bit of the 25 by 30 and hopefully maybe it’s 30 by 30,” he added, referring to the initiative to reduce the region’s food import bill by 25 to 30 per cent by 2030.

 

Ramsaroop, who said this was his fifth Agrofest, described the exhibition as steadily improving.

 

“It’s been improving every single year I’ve been here. This is, I think, my fifth time coming, and what I see in terms of what Barbados can contribute to the region is significant by joining forces,” he said.