‘Project CARE’ relaunches as long-term food security drive

The government has relaunched Project CARE as a long-term initiative to help households produce food, earn income, and build resilience through agriculture, climate-smart farming, and small-scale livestock rearing.

The Community Agriculture Response and Empowerment (CARE) initiative has shifted from an emergency pandemic response four years ago to a long-term national empowerment programme.

Originally introduced to address economic and supply-chain disruptions caused by the pandemic and other global events, the revamped project aims to build household resilience, encourage agricultural entrepreneurship, and strengthen food and nutritional security across the island.

The initiative prioritises single-parent households, young people, and people receiving social assistance, with agricultural empowerment as a key part of a national economic and social development strategy. 

The relaunch brought together the ministers for social care and farming, an MP, community leaders and representatives of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Moving beyond its initial focus on distributing basic backyard gardening inputs, the restructured initiative now includes technical training, climate-smart farming techniques, aquaponics and small-scale livestock rearing.

Through links with social development programmes, the government plans to create pathways for participants to move from household food production to commercial agricultural ventures.

Deputy Speaker of the House of Assembly Neil Rowe, the St Michael North West MP, spoke of the initiative’s potential to assist vulnerable groups and transform communities through collective effort.

“Agriculture can help us build second chances,” he said. “There are people in these communities and across my constituency who have made mistakes. There are young people who have not yet found their purpose. There are families looking for additional income. There are individuals who simply need someone to say, ‘I believe there is something you can do, and I am prepared to help you find that opportunity.’ That is what this journey taught me.”

Rowe pointed to the need for cooperation in sustaining such projects, noting that parliamentarians and farmers could not achieve meaningful change in isolation.

“When the government, communities, farmers, schools, businesses and individuals work together, we can create opportunities that have a lasting impact.

“So as CARE is relaunched today, I encourage us not to look at this programme merely as another agriculture initiative. Let us see it as an investment in people, communities and Barbados’ future.”

Minister of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs Adrian Forde focused on the link between social development, agricultural innovation and climate change adaptation. He said local farmers play a vital role in national survival amid changing environmental conditions.

Forde said: “Our agriculture is fierce with the vagaries of climate change. In the same way that persons in the One Family programme are faced with vulnerabilities as it relates to poverty, lack of proper housing, and lack of proper food and nutritional supplies, our agriculture is equally faced with pests and climate change vulnerabilities.”

He praised climate-mitigation measures included in the farm designs, such as natural drainage systems that reflect traditional Barbadian conservation techniques, while commending producers.

“Farmers turn what is called the soil – Barbadians may call it mud as we know it – and produce money. If farmers are magicians, don’t forget it. You are the only people who can turn soil into money, and that, my friends, is true magic. This project allows Barbados to finally see the rest of the world as a smaller developer, proving that we have been able to mitigate those challenges that associate themselves with small countries, and now we are in a position to feed ourselves.”

(RR)