Climate smart innovation in agriculture the only way to survive
Climate smart innovative agriculture is the direction that we need to take in developing the agriculture sector in Barbados, so says David Bynoe, National Coordinator with the Global Environmental Facility, Small Grants Programme (SGP) implemented by the UNDP.
He told The Barbados Advocate recently at the SGP Project Inception Workshop held at the UN headquarters, “Climate change is the most important economic threat that small developing states face, and when you look at climate smart agriculture what is important is that no longer are you having a production system that can be easily impacted by climate extremes. The climate smart initiatitive must be resilient to drought, hurricane, flooding etcetera....”
“That is the only way we can develop not having to start from scratch over and over again. Just last week we were in Dominica and we looked at the impact several of these projects would have taken from Hurricane Maria and it was very devastating in many communities, many of our initiatives that looked at being climate smart were able to stand up even to Maria and in some cases save lives.”
Bynoe explained, “In terms of Climate Smart Agriculture, we have some innovative initiatives that show how Barbados can modernize the agriculture sector and be resilient at the same time. There is a project called ‘Solar Grow’ which is producing high value vegetables and herbs within a controlled environment. It is all done from a smart phone or IPad remotely, in addition to that it is all powered using solar energy and renewable energy, and they are not only saving money but also the potential have generating energy. We can now grow crops we could not do before such as strawberries, romaine lettuce that we import, even if temperature gets warmer we can grow what we do now and new crops...”
He pointd out, “Climate Smart has to be able to deal with drought issues, what is most imperative is that of the water used, 70 percent is saved and reused… All of these apps are created locally and in the process of being patented, which means Barbadian entrepreneurs are able to have this packaged and sell to any country which faces these challenges and it is even more appealing to water scarce countries.”
While speaking at the workshop it was noted that, “The Grantee Inception workshop, the main aim is to ensure that the grantee understands the programme itself, one of the objectives of the programme is that they need to understand their obligation which was outlined in the memorandum agreement. It is important that we take the opportunity to look at it before they embark on project implementation. In addition to that, programme management is integral, in each of their projects they need to report to ensure that their project is being managed effectively, therefore they need to understand their reporting responsibilities and how to successfully manage and implement a project. We also have past grantees of the SGP come back and share their experiences and as a result we have a strong grantee network.” (NB)