Agriculture Minister denies farmers neglected by Gov’t

Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Indar Weir is dismissing claims by some farmers that his ministry and the Government in general have neglected their concerns.

“I just want to dispel the myth that the Ministry is in the Bermuda Triangle somewhere and is not doing anything for the farmers,” he declared on Friday in response to a group of farmers who work with the Barbados Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (BADMC) complaining that the Mia Mottley administration had done little to assist them.

The farmers who met on Wednesday complained of a 200 per cent increase in water bills and the rising cost of other farming inputs.

But Weir was adamant that the Ministry of Agriculture has been providing incentives to farmers and meeting with them on an ongoing basis.

In fact, he pointed out that it was looking to invest some $100 million in a project that will make water available to farmers.

“I can’t guarantee you will get all, but we are certainly well underway with the provision of water at Haggatts, at River, at Lears…and for the farmers at the Spring Hall Land Lease as well,” he told reporters during a site visit to Poyers, St Lucy, where the Government has provided 76 acres of land and water for irrigation for food crop and livestock farmers under the Farmers Empowerment and Enfranchisement Drive (FEED) programme.

Weir said while Government was committed to small farmers, it must insist on providing a level playing field for all.

He also sought to address the complaint about the increase in water bills for some farmers.

An arrangement that existed from the 1970s, under which the Barbados Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (BADMC) extracted water from wells it controls and sold to farmers at a rate of 66 cents per cubic metre (per 200 gallons), came to an end on April 30. From May 1, farmers were given a special $1.80 per cubic metre rate.

“People are pushing back at the rate of $1.80 per cubic metre. I am saying all the time when a household invariably is paying $2.48 for the same cubic metre of water, that we were at the stage in Barbados where we had water apartheid in agriculture, where some people were paying as high as $7.66 per cubic metre, and this was not sustainable. We argue there should be one flat rate so that agriculture would benefit from an agricultural rate, and that is the rate we have arrived at,” Weir explained.

He added that Government was currently subsidising water rates for farmers and would continue to work with them to ensure their operational costs were not an albatross around their necks.

“But, equally, we can’t put payment plans in place and people are not coming forward and meeting their commitments; and because it is Government you would find invariably they [water services] are not turned off and they continue to increase the arrears; whereas with the Barbados Water Authority, the domestic household gets cut off and that domestic house does not have a revenue stream. This is water that they must have. Farmers have a revenue stream,” Weir contended.

The Agriculture Minister has pledged to work with all farmers to try to fix the water rate challenges, but insisted that everybody must be on the same page.
(EJ)