Minister of Agriculture, Food and Nutritional Security Indar Weir on Tuesday uprooted claims that arable land was being used up for purposes other than agriculture.
In his post-lunch contribution to a resolution to approve the Barbados Physical Development Plan as amended in 2023, he told the House of Assembly there was adequate land available but cautioned that the country could no longer solely rely on open-field agriculture given unpredictable weather patterns.
Pointing to the intense heat and drought conditions during summer, Weir said it wreaked havoc on root crops, resulting in a significant drop in yields.
“In looking at the figures or the numbers that have been sent to me so far, I have to be honest in saying that our yields are down with regard to crops like sweet potato, and whilst they are up with cassava, we have to find a way to address what the heat is doing with sweet potato,” he said.
Outlining a few climate-smart initiatives to benefit the sector, he pointed to a project at the St Philip-based Home Agricultural Station to develop a state-of-the-art tissue culture lab that produces clean planting material and conducts testing to help the sector thrive in a changing environment.
The minister also revealed that the government was moving to roll out, at various points across the island, opportunities to allow people to work in co-operatives, in addition to using the cluster system in open-field agriculture to own hydroponic systems that would help to reduce the scarcity of crops impacted by heat and other conditions.
“Certainly, the amount of calls that I get or WhatsApp messages where people either tell me that they’re not getting water or the entire place is flooded out and they’re losing crops, I am absolutely sure in my mind where this sector needs to go. And even though we have not been able to move at pace to introduce these systems as I personally would have liked, I do not think that we are too late, because as I’ve said before, globally, many countries are still playing catch up and the entire globe is facing the same climate crisis and scarcity of water is at the core.
“If we can ramp up these systems by first starting in about three or four areas, getting Barbadians accustomed to them, providing the training and then spread out and provide the opportunity for financing – because you can’t ask people to transition from one level of agriculture to another and they don’t have the financial wherewithal – then, Mr Speaker, that would give us an opportunity for people to produce more with faster harvesting times and higher yields,” he told his colleagues in the Lower House.
The agriculture minister also tabled the idea of freight farms, which are container farms with hydroponic systems, particularly for urban communities.
”A freight farm which is doing the same type of hydroponics system but allows for you to use technology – your mobile phone, your iPad, your laptop, desktop, whatever you choose – to be able to control a farm – the temperature, the lighting, applying fertiliser, all those things that you can do from your motor car, in the traffic, from your bedroom, in your office – that kind of system we need as well,” he said.
Weir insisted that the changes to the physical development plan equally ensure that space for agriculture is not compromised, pointing out that it now allows for subdivision.
“Many farmers have said to me that they would like to do some kind of subdivision on large tracts of land four acres and above, up to 10 acres, and we were restricted under the previous development plan. But this plan now lends itself to allow for that to take place in an acreage allotment that would allow for our farmers to be able to grow agriculture on their land while living there,” he said, noting that previously only those on large plantations could live on their properties.
Weir said farmers on smaller tracts of land – one-acre lots – would also have that option.
(SD)
