LEASE ON LAND

GOV’T EYEING PRIVATE ACREAGE FOR AGRICULTURE PRODUCTION

By Jenique Belgrave

Chief Agricultural Officer Keeley Holder says her ministry is engaging in an initiative to bring privately-owned plantation land back into production.
She was responding to concerns of former minister of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs Cynthia Forde who pointed out that there was a significant number of plantations around the island where the lands are fallow.
Holder revealed that as the country sought to increase its agricultural production, her ministry is already engaged in talks with the owners of these lands to discuss whether a lease arrangement could be arranged for small farmers.
“We are aware that these plantations are all privately-owned, and one of the initiatives of the Barbados Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (BADMC), given that we were constrained in terms of having enough land for feed farmers, is that we’ve actually started to reach out to private landowners to discuss how we could, as the government, through the BADMC, lease those lands and then offer a sublease to farmers. This would then create that opportunity to get those lands in production again, and increase the productive capacity of the nation,” she said from the well of Parliament during Friday’s debate on Estimates.
“That work has already started, and we have engaged with a number of private plantations that are either out of production currently, or maybe thinking about going out of production, as we don’t want to see those lands idle with the river tamarind. So that is part of the initiative to ensure that we are getting as much of the land back into production as possible,” Holder added.
Forde, the MP for St.Thomas also questioned the agriculture officials on the commencement of work at the site of the University of the West Indies Agri-Business Development Park at Dukes in her constituency.
Launched in 2017, the project is expected to transform the 30-acre site into an entrepreneurial hub for various agri-business establishments, including agro-processing and cotton processing facilities, a food standards laboratory and a chocolate manufacturing plant.
Saying the delay to the project’s start was due to the inaction of the former Democratic Labour Party government in starting the process of transferring the land to the university, Minister Indar Weir said all conveyances have finally been completed.
“We have settled all that now and the project is moving ahead,” he said.
The land was donated to UWI by the owners of Dukes Plantation, Charles and Vanessa Edghill.
jeniquebelgrave@barbadostoday.bb