EDITORIAL
In recent times there has been a lot of talk about increasing agricultural production in this country, to help reduce the food import bill and to save valuable foreign exchange, especially as the country continues to grapple with economic challenges.
Since coming to office, this has been one of the major points that the Government has been focused on, and it was no surprise then when earlier this year it followed through with the promise to train more farmers and create employment opportunities in the sector. Those efforts have resulted in the implementation of the Farmers Empowerment and Enfranchisement Drive (FEED) through which the country is hoping to produce most of those things that we currently import, such as cabbage, broccoli, different varieties of lettuce, sweet peppers and tomatoes.
The FEED programme was launched in May of this year, and last month Minister of Agriculture, Indar Weir revealed that the first phase for the first cohort was completed, and that just over 100 participants received training in various agricultural practices and technologies, including pest and disease management, spray application technologies, irrigation infrastructure and hydroponics. At the time, he also indicated that in the second phase those farmers would be leased land to carry out their various activities.
So it is safe to say that the success of this programme is dependent on there being enough land for the farmers to utilise. But if we are to be honest, we would acknowledge that access to land has been limited, as more and more agricultural land has been taken out of production for housing and other development. While greenhouses, container farms and hydroponics are ways to farm without vast acres of land and this is being encouraged, we should not abandon the land completely, because conventional farming still has its perks including lower costs of produce.
The Barbados Agricultural Society for example has long been raising its concern about the growing number of applications for changes in land use, and the impact those changes, if granted, can have on the future of the agricultural sector. Face it, one of the biggest problems facing local agriculture at this time is the deliberate neglect of good agricultural land for the sole purpose of bringing about a change in land use.
Between late the 1990s and 2008, the land space under sugar cultivation dropped by 34 per cent and since then, the country has been losing hundreds of acres of such land on a yearly basis, with much of it being left idle with the view of embarking on some form of physical development in the future. Most of these lands were once in sugar production and this is therefore not only harming the already struggling sugar industry, but non-sugar agriculture as well, as the land on those plantations is usually in rotation, and planted with crops when not used for sugar cane. Crops such as yams and sweet potatoes.
Government must condemn this practice as it can destroy this country’s ability to achieve food security. To that end, it is believed that we need legislation to deal with idle lands, which would assist Government and stakeholders in the agricultural sector to boost production and ensure its long term viability. Now while the introduction of legislation to guarantee that the good arable land is kept in production is not a new idea, it is still a relevant one today, especially as we continue to deal with astronomical food costs and the high incidence of non-communicable diseases as a result of the consumption of too much processed food.
Now more than ever Barbadians need to grow more of what they eat, and it is our contention that taking good quality agricultural land out of production will certainly not help. So we must protect the land – a word to the wise is enough.