Now as well as then: BADMC, I’m sorry

For the last three years, I functioned as the Chairman of BADMC (Barbados Agriculture Development Marketing Coperation). I must state that fact so that it is quite clear from the outset that I do know what I am writing about. It also makes it possible for you to judge whether I am being unfairly biased or not.

Incidentally, I have spent a great deal of my life in the service of my country, Barbados, irrespective of the political stripe of the Government. Now that we have a party that has won all the seats, I expect that party to govern as if it were representative of all possible parties.

Before leaving my role of Chairman, I presented to the new Minister a fairly comprehensive picture of what the Corporation had been doing and of its strengths and weaknesses. Our two main weaknesses were that we were owed some 2 million dollars by VAT, which would have put the Corporation in the black and the second was that the former Government had mandated the Corporation to provide ploughing services for several mini-farmers, which could not be done economically. This service accounted for most of any losses we encountered. But we had taken food innovation to a completely new level in Barbados. We had done at least as much as our Amerindian forebears had done with cassava. We had made everything from light snacks to cassava black cake, as well as two cassava sorbets. We had also made sorbets from sweet potato and even concocted a jam, appropriately named bonango jam.

To back this all up, we had ordered a mill from Colombia that could produce 3 tons of breadfruit, cassava or sweet potato flour in a day. The Chinese had agreed to build the structure, which would house the mill. Canada was enamoured of our black cake, and we were hoping to sell thousands of black cakes to Canada, along with sorbets, packaged as dry powders to be re-soaked and frozen. One would then have our gluten free, lactose free product easily available abroad. There were a number of other projects on stream, like a sheep farm project in conjunction with the Ministry of Education at Hope and a slaughterhouse project at Dukes. These two projects we had negotiated using our expertise as a substitute for actual funding.

Then came the axe-men, whose job was to reduce the Corporation to its proper size, especially by cutting those experts who had been hired in the last three years. We had previously undergone the scrutiny of the former Governor of the Central Bank. We explained that while he had chosen the path of fiscal consolidation, we had expanded and by careful management, succeeded in surviving in difficult times. He was duly impressed. The axe-men figured they needed to reduce the work force by approximately one third. They conveniently used the last in first out method.

It is clearly mindless to use this method across the board. When I assumed the chairmanship, the corporation was run like many public sector departments. If the leader is not blessed with some management skills, the operation is based on doing a modicum of what one is expected to do, avoid taking any risks and never “over-working.” In other words, the corporation was going nowhere rapidly. What we did was to install a new CEO and key managers within the system. We stocked the innovative sector of the BADMC with three stars, two of whom have been fired. We also hired a qualified accountant, so that we could keep a good control of our spending and produce the reports that should have been submitted to Parliament since God knows when. He would have been able to bring the corporation up to date but for the tardiness of the auditors. They were busy with other Government agencies. We also had two very competent agriculturalists, both of whom have been canned.

One of the first to go was our great innovator. Not since Carmeta Frazer, have we had anyone who came to the fore with innovation. She had the assistance of the “successor” to Carmeta. In tribute to the late, great Carmeta, the two shops run by the Corporation were named after her. The first axe of the Board fell on the innovator. The shops were handed over to one of the old school, who had not been known for any great effort. One wonders if in the near future we shall see any of the black belly ham that was so liked or the tunami, the name concocted for a ham for the non-meat eaters made from tuna with no pork.

Given the fact that the drivers of the system have been axed, one wonders what will become of the projects that the BADMC had lined up for completion this year. Is it too pessimistic to believe that both the Hope Project and the Duke project will die? What will become of the cassava mill? I suppose that the solution will be to sell off whatever is saleable to the so-called private sector. Pardon me if I recall that the last such sell off of an agency that exported sweet potatoes and breadfruit to the UK was promptly shut down by the private sector buyer and one farmer who normally sold $100,000 to the UK was left without a market.