The Barbados Agricultural Management Company (BAMC) is partnering with Exclusive Cottons of the Caribbean Inc. on a project that could improve how the fibre is harvested and potentially boost production.
Chief executive officer of Exclusive Cottons Adlai Stevenson told Barbados TODAY the two entities were looking to import approximately 40 handheld harvesters that he said could significantly address two of the major challenges facing the industry – a lack of labour and insufficient lands to grow the cotton.
These challenges have led to a fall-off in the local cotton industry over the past several years, despite international demand for the product and the profitability of West Indian Sea Cotton, which is one of the highest priced in the world at more than US$10 per pound.
“Hopefully, the harvesters will encourage more people to come out. We anticipate that the harvesters will prove themselves and, hopefully, the farmers are more enthusiastic about picking cotton,” Stevenson said.
The Exclusive Cottons boss said that it was difficult at this time to provide an overall cost of the project due to the “volatile” nature of shipping.
However, he said the plan was to buy the harvesters in bulk, noting that the 40 harvesters cost about $16 000.
Stevenson said it would be “interesting” to see how much acreage would be planted in conjunction with this project in the next planting schedule which is set to commence at month end.
According to Stevenson, over the years Barbados has been unable to fulfil orders primarily to its market in Italy.
He said 2022 was another disappointing year, with Barbados falling far short of 80 000 pounds of lint which would make the industry lucrative.
This year’s harvest was 17 956 pounds of cotton, producing just 6 000 pounds of lint. Of that amount, the BAMC produced 10 000 pounds while the Ministry of Agriculture produced the balance.
About $138 000 was earned from this year’s production.
“We need substantially more cotton being planted and we need substantially more in yield. So we are not at all satisfied with the output because we have orders that we are not able to meet as a result of the low production,” Stevenson said.
In 2021, the harvest was 27 845 pounds of cotton, from which 9 282 pounds of lint were produced. In 2020, 10 901 pounds of lint were produced from 32 703 pounds of cotton.
Meanwhile, BAMC’s agronomist Nyah Nyhathu said that on the corporation’s end, only 51 acres of cotton were planted in Three Houses and Mount Pleasant in St Philip and Edgecliff, St John.
He said close to 200 pounds of the fibre were reaped per acre, which was “not bad”.
“It is an improvement from the position that we were in over the past two years. It isn’t where we would like to be still. We had a relatively dry year again – it affects the growth of the fibre – then we had to deal with different pests,” Nyhathu said.
sheriabrathwaite@barbadostoday.bb
