BGI explores alternative fisheries options

According to a recent study, $2.6 million of foreign exchange is spent on shrimp per year and in an effort to reduce this cost, Blue Green Initiative (BGI) has embarked on a project to see if they could grow saltwater shrimp in Barbados.

Speaking with media on Friday afternoon, CEO of Blue Green Initiative, Mohammad Nagdee, explained that the project was produced not only to find a way to reduce the import cost of food in Barbados, but also to empower young Barbadians so that they would be able to generate income from an alternate source.

He revealed that with the help of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Small Grants Programme (SGP) implemented by the United Nations Development Programme, they were able to use the seed money of US$31 600 to begin the project in 2017. He explained that over the last few years, they would have had plenty trials and errors, but they were on the road to success as recently they were able to grow the shrimp that they brought into Barbados to a marketable size.

Nagdee stated that their next step would be to scale up the project in order to commercialise it.

Jehroum Wood, President of Blue Green Initiative, highlighted that the science of growing shrimp was a little trickier than expected as shrimp were not found in Barbados.

“It is a complicated and costly endeavour, so with the partnership with GEF and SGP, they have been able to put support behind something that has to be tested. The science is something that has to be tested, you have to figure it out, you have to test what is working and just try something to make sure it is exactly what you want; and we have been testing to make sure that we have a sound methodology in producing these shrimp in getting them to local production,” he said.

Now that they have accomplished being able to grow the imported shrimp to marketable size, Wood noted that the next step would be to breed the shrimp in Barbados so that they are able to eliminate this very costly component of the process.