More agricultural products should be supplied to supermarkets

James Paul, Chief Executive Officer of the Barbados Agricultural Society (BAS,) expressed that it is his wish to see more local agricultural products supplied to supermarkets.

His comments came during the opening ceremony of a BAS and CTA training seminar titled “Good Agricultural Practices”, which was held at the Radisson Aquatica Resort yesterday morning. Paul revealed that yesterday’s workshop was the first of ten seminars that they expected to host.

He acknowledged that farmers generally had problems increasing their supply and maintaining an increased supply of product and explained that the reason for having these workshops was strictly to assist them in their problem areas.

“What we are trying to do is emphasise the best practices in the industry. There is a problem in terms of consistency from farmers in maintaining this level of consistency that supermarkets need,” he said.

He explained that addressing these consistency and quantity issues that farmers had was important, as he believed that the farmers had the ability to supply the markets with products, which would decrease the food import bill.

“We have to earn foreign exchange. As you are well aware, the country is importing too much of what it eats and we have the capacity in this country to produce those products. There’s nothing, except a few rare products that we can not produce,” he said.

Paul announced that the BAS would be making a selection of particular farms in which they planned to demonstrate the things taught in the training seminars. He described this selection process as making an investment in the future of agriculture.

Additionally, the CEO expressed that he also wished to see an increase in the production of commodities. He noted that he understood that they could not get these products increased unless the farmers were adequately trained on good agricultural practices and noted that at the end of the ten workshops, participants would be thoroughly trained in every aspect.