Barbados signs MOU with China to expand capabilities in agricultural sector

Barbados has signed a memorandum of understanding with China, aimed at expanding the island’s capabilities within the agricultural sector.

The signing took place Sunday at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Nutritional Security offices at Graeme Hall. Minister Indar Weir joined the Governor of Hunan Province, Mao Weiming, for the signing.

Weir said cooperation between the two entities had already begun, with the pilot rice project between Hunan Linshi Agricultural Services, in collaboration with the Barbados Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (BADMC) at Fairy Valley, Christ Church.

“We started off with a rice project at BADMC, and that basically was just a trial or pilot project to see how rice would grow in Barbados. I was told rice was grown in Barbados many years ago, so this is really just a reinventing of the wheel so to speak. That agreement will allow us then to be able to benefit from equipment that they will provide to Barbados, so that when we are harvesting the rice we won’t have to do it manually, and then it also allows us to benefit from training,” he said.

“They will send people who are experts in the growing of rice to Barbados and they then will train people in Barbados, so that we can develop more acreage in rice. We started at the Pine Basin, which is 20 acres, then we will move from there once we see how that goes,” he explained.

Weir, however, admitted that the current challenges with water will hamper rice production on the island, hence swampy areas are being outlined to help sustain the pilot project.

Weir added: “This visit from by Governor is not just to have bilaterals with the Ministry of Agriculture, but they will also be meeting us tomorrow with the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, to strengthen our ties with the People’s Republic of China, and to carry out a number of things that would have been agreed upon when the Prime Minister met with them.

“So, today is the beginning of what will take place over the next few days and we look forward to a lengthy collaboration with the Department of Agriculture, the People’s Republic of China, and indeed Zoomlion [who previously donated a sugarcane harvester].”

The agriculture minister expressed hope that modern hydroponic technology can also be brought to the island via the agreement.

“I spoke to them about using contemporary hydroponic farms, the ones that you operate from your mobile phone or your laptop or your iPad, and we are looking at systems now to see how many of those we can use in Barbados using the technology that is available to us. More importantly, to reduce the dependency on high volumes of water, which is a problem for us as we speak.”