Agriculture Minister, farmers debate boosting food production

Government has promised more measures to shore up agriculture, added to initiatives already underway, but farmers contend that long-term problems must first be addressed for food production to grow.

The debate emerged on the CBC television current affairs programme, The People’s Business, in which Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Indar Weir appeared with chief executive of the Barbados Agricultural Society James Paul and Lorenzo Harewood of Farm Finders Global.

Weir outlined parts of his ministry’s plan to bring 750 acres of land back into farming, which he said is “doing very well, and this was before COVID-19 emerged.

He said: “My ministry, along with the Barbados Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (BADMC) has set up a programme to allow farmers to come to the BADMC with estimates of what is required for inputs like fertilisers, sprays and seedlings.

BAS president James Paul

“The BADMC does an assessment and the information is submitted to the Agricultural Development Fund and Enterprise Growth Fund. Once the farmers start working they will pay back the lending agencies.

“Right now, we are self sufficient in sweet potatoes, the poultry industry and other livestock farmers have an excess supply now because the hotels and fast food places are closed.

“We have a task force on agriculture and I met with them last Monday, and we are considering growing broccoli here, because presently we spend $7 million a year importing that commodity.”

But while indicating he was pleased with the Government’s progress, Paul expressed concern about what he termed “elephants in the room” that had hampered farming for many years.

Paul told the programme: “One of the biggest ones is praedial larceny. I know a new Act was passed in 2017 which to me adequately addressed the concerns of the sector, but enforcement of the act is the issue.

“If the current attitude of the judiciary in dealing with cases continues, it will be a disincentive for farmers to increase production. Irrigation is another issue and we must recognise that current building patterns have compromised our groundwater supply which is crucial to agricultural production.

“We also have antiquated bureaucratic procedures. For example, one company was importing a herbicide into Barbados, and now a new company has taken over, farmers have to go through another process if they want to bring it in. Monkeys have also become a problem, because people have become hesitant to plant crops because the monkeys are constantly raiding them.”

Harewood of Farm Finders Global suggested that CARICOM’s approach to agriculture had to change in line with current international trends.

He said: “Article 57 of the Treaty of Chaguramas, which covers the agricultural industry, does not speak to disaster preparedness, disaster response and risk reduction, and presently, many countries including the UK, are seeing a shift away from state support, and are looking to add more viabliity through private and NGO financing.

“Much of the discussion I am hearing here and in the region leans too heavily on the Government, when ideally Government should be creating an enabling environment for the sector to thrive.”

Weir said he noted those concerns, and said Government was planning to address them.

The Agriculture Minister said: “We are working on new praedial larceny legislation. While the last administration did it, the system they recommended proved too cumbersome for farmers.

“The one we are bringing speaks to the use of technology, using drones and traceability systems where you can barcode commodities and animals so you can trace where crops and animals came from, and we will have wardens to monitor it as well.

“We are working with the Ministry of the Environment on a strategic plan to deal with the monkeys because at the end of the day, when you destroy these animals’ habitats they have to find other places to go.”

On the issue of supplies of agricultural products, Weir said: “I have already taken to Cabinet a proposal to develop a website which will give consumers updated information on a weekly basis on the supply of produce so we can avoid gluts.

“Under our FEED programme we are making sure we do not ask farmers to produce items we cannot sell. If we are going to ask farmers to produce more Government has to be accountable, so 60 per cent of government procurement must come from local production, for example the Ministry of Health, the School Meals Service and the prison and this is currently being worked on.”

The Minister added that Barbados was taking serious steps to increase production of two signature commodities, namely sea island cotton and the Barbados black belly sheep.

He revealed: “Cabinet has agreed to increase black belly sheep production to a million heads in seven years, and this is a joint project with the Governments of Barbados and Suriname.

“We are also hoping that by the end of this term in office, we will have 2000 acres of land in sea island cotton production. The BADMC has already started on this.

“Some years ago cotton production had dropped to 100 acres; we are up to 300 now but we want to make it into a viable textile industry, along with the leather from the black belly sheep skins.”