New facility opens with aim to help improve farming sector

The Paradise Nature Park has officially opened and officials are hoping that the new facility will help improve and diversify the farming sector.

During the brief opening ceremony on Monday, park personnel along with Minister of Agriculture, Food and Nutritional Security Indar Weir and other ministry officials, toured the Balls, Christ Church location which underwent a major transformation in 2015. The previous Ocean Park Aquarium was converted into a new visitor attraction that combined agriculture and a working farm with exotic animals and a botanical garden.

Paradise Nature Park’s owner and Chief Biologist Mitchel Hird explained to the media: “[We wanted to] provide a fun but educational opportunity specifically for Barbadian families to come and learn and see first hand a lot of these animals.”

“It’s not just something we can be proud of but also Barbadians can be proud of to have here. More importantly, I think it allows them to see some new breeds of animals, especially some of the new breeds of agricultural animals that have been brought into Barbados that have tremendous future potential for agriculture production and hybridising with local varieties, and optimising productivity of the farming sector.”

Hird said that education in the sector is one of their main aims with the new project, noting that experimenting with new species of plants or livestock could reap significant benefits in the long run.

“I think that is kind of the first and important step in formulating a way forward, specifically for the farmers. Potentially, they [can] look at hybridising what they have with, say, Boer goats or some of the other highly productive varieties. That would mean you could produce more meat and milk and that kind of stuff,” he suggested.

Minister Weir praised Hird and his team for the work that has been done so far on the site and expressed hope that the site would be expanded in the near future.

“I believe Mr Hird and his team are doing an excellent job here. I really and truly would like to see an expansion of the goats project because it is something that we need in Barbados. Barbadians now are into curry goat in a big way and I think that our farmers equally can benefit from coming here,” he said, noting that the facility would serve several purposes.

“Be it to get different species of animals, to be able to expand what we have, or for the people who are into ornamentals to be able to come here and get either different varieties of plants, [or] those who want to keep pets, they can come also.” (SB)