INCREASE LOCAL produce

PROVIDED that everything goes according to plan, Barbados should be producing 100 per cent of their onion consumption within the next three to five years.

CEO of the Barbados Agricultural Society (BAS), James Paul, made mention of this as he addressed the media during a press conference at his office recently.

“One of the things that we have been doing since last year is that we have been engaging in a project for developing onions, where we are targeting that within the next three to five years we can actually be 100 per cent self-sufficient in the production of onions and some other products. But onions is the one that we have as the target at the moment,” he explained.

Furthermore, he believes that it is possible thanks in part to partnerships developed with large supermarket chains who have given their commitment to carrying local onions on their shelves.

“We will accomplish this through... a partnership between the various actors around the supply chain. So for instance, we have the larger retailers such as Supercentre (Massy Supermarkets) involved in that. We also have import suppliers involved. We also have Government involved in terms of the extension services of Government. BADMC has been a critical partner here because they are actually assisting farmers out there who are actually producing onions.”

Paul also believes that other sectors and organisations would come on board to assist with this goal.

“So we have a number of state enterprises. We have also the private sector involved in this partnership, the objective of course is to obtain 100 per cent self sufficiency in the production of onion and we feel that this is completely obtainable. We feel that we can also duplicate this in proportion to other commodity chains and that is one of the things that we are attempting to do.”

He stated that this would not be possible otherwise. “Again we make the point that this can only happen if we have the co-operation of all sectors. To that extent therefore , that as part of the strategy of increasing food production in the medium term right now, that we have right now the maintenance of a policy environment okay? That facilitates that. At the same time, government also has a responsibility to do so. But also more important is that we need the co-operation of other sectors of the private sector that would permit us to be able to do this.”