Rastafari to grow food, run café in major project – Weir

A major farming project run by the Rastafarian community is being planned for Bath, St. John, Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Indar Weir announced Friday, as he declared that the area’s windswept fields and the historic spring that feeds it will be transformed into a 100-acre farm.

During a visit to the area on Friday with agriculture ministry officials, Weir said that the area, once overgrown with shrubbery, is to become a  major agricultural hub.

He told reporters: “In total, this should be 100 acres, we intend to clear the entire area and cultivate it, and then we are going to run from here [at the site] all the way down to where farmers are already doing agriculture production. All in all, I am hoping that we can grow and have food here, where we can create a vending site here at Bath.”

The Soil Conservation Unit and the Barbados Agricultural Management Co Ltd (BAMC) have been in charge of clearing debris from the site, and some abandoned buildings are to be restored to create a community health food cafeteria, the minister told reporters.

Once one of St John’s largest and most productive sugar plantations, Bath became a Government-owned plantation. From 1972 to 1996, the surrounding lands at Congor Bay were occupied by the island’s first satellite earth station which was operated by Cable and Wireless. Since its decommissioning, the area has been largely abandoned but the Rastafarian community consider the springs that jut out from the hillside overlooking the bay to be a sacred place of pilgrimage.

The farm project, which has to go before Parliament, is expected to receive quick approval and will turn the Bath fields into a thriving green and health-conscious area.

Weir said: “We already started the process of presenting this project to Cabinet so that we can get the funding to be able to carry out the entire program. When we are finished, Bath will be a green spot, with total agriculture production.

“We have to help the Rastafarian community, so what we are doing for them, we are providing the land at a very favourable  lease rate. We are also providing them with the inputs for the crops [and] we are going to provide for them support with water. In reality, we are going to supply water so that farmers especially in the dry season can still have access to a continuous supply of water.”

One of the farmers attached to the project, Anthony Ras Levi Burrowes, said he intends to harvest a variety of crops to help feed the most vulnerable Barbadians.

“I personally want nothing from this project, everything I am doing I am giving to poor people… I as an example can work this land, and give away everything to those that don’t have,” he declared. (SB)