Submitted by Looking Glass
Locally made soft beverages (sweet-drinks) are no more. Today almost all soft drinks and concentrates like mauby and ginger beer come from abroad. Is it that small domestic industry is beyond the ability or inclination of the Bajan? Imagine Canadian brand bottled water on our supermarket shelves. We have some of the softest, purest, natural water any where on planet earth, much of which goes to watering golf courses. An 18 hole golf course requires about 3000 gallons of water a day. This helps to lower the water table and increase the cost to the people. Wouldn’t it be better to bottle and sell our own water? At least it would generate some jobs and revenue.
Then there is JU-See, one of the best soft drinks around. The company was uniquely positioned to more or less monopolize the market. Production cost notwithstanding, the loss of market share and declining profit margins was more or less inevitable. In an age of flavourings, essences—from strawberries and grapes to pineapple and guava— and packaging, little was done to diversify and bring new products to the market. One is hard-pressed to find a country where soft drinks and water-based tropical fruit drinks are not profitable. It seems that foreign control is needed to render our business profitable.
Flying fish has long been a staple. There is a mob-o’-ton of fish of all sorts, especially off the East and South coasts. Shortly after SHRIMP was discovered at our doorstep, Dipper brought in a small fishing fleet capable of fishing where our little fishing boats couldn’t go. Before long the ships ended up tied to the wharf. Why need not detain us here, but it wasn’t due to the lack of fish. One person got one of the ships met the Japanese trawlers, took what they didn’t want and made a tidy living. Nothing wrong with that. The four vessels the Canadians gave us for inter-regional transport also had a very short life.
Has it occurred to those past and present with, among other things, self-possessed vision, to set up a little fishing industry to service the island and export It makes more sense to invest the $40m set aside for decorating Sandy’s House on three on four small fishing boats, processing equipment and enhancing storage facilities. External agencies will help. There is a market for fish and unique flying fish and by-products at home and abroad. When we can’t get flying fish or the price is too high, a flying fish lunch can be had at a certain New York hotel for about a modest $160.00.
In certain countries the water is so polluted the fish is left alone or eaten at your peril Fish has to be imported The fact that they could come from far away to fish in our waters as has been and is the case right now underscores market existence. Flying fish can be gutted and packaged whole them, or down the centre into two steaks and sold in packets of four or six steaks. The melts (and rows) can be made into a gourmet condiment specialty fit for the royal table. Heads and bones can be made into broth and soup. Add bits of root crops, or vegetables and different assortments of spices and you end with product differentiation. The same can be done with other kinds of fish.
Consider small industries to make sweet potato, yam, plantain and breadfruit chips, cassava flour and by products like jams, jellies etc, from citrus products. The price of wheat flour was so high in Nigeria the people started mixing it with home made cassava flour. Today cassava flour is a flourishing industry in its own right. Land devoted to growing these and other food items will feed the people, be far more productive, and generate much more long term revenue and employment than golf courses, hotels— we continue to have excess ‘hotel’ capacity— and homes for rich expatriates. Has anyone stopped to ponder the socio- economic and psychological impact of the latter?
By the way I believe there is a law on the books restricting the height of buildings, also one restricting the use of agricultural land to agriculture production only. Have these laws been amended in any way? Or are foreigners exempt? Perhaps it is time we stop the remaining agricultural lands—like Todds— being given over to building projects and golf courses. Given the rising cost of imported food we might to return to bush tea for sustenance
The notion that agricultural land, especially sugarcane land is non-productive is patently false. Sugar on its own was never really competitive. Sugar lost its competitive advantage when the preferential status it enjoyed in the mother country ended and other substitute sweeteners came on stream. Lower export prices rather than more expensive sugarcane or declining yields per acre resulted in declining profit. Except for rum, molasses and falernum, we failed to generate sugar-byproducts.
Falernum is apparently a rare and unique product that is unique to Barbados. Mixed with soda or coconut water it makes a splendid non-alcoholic beverage. Among other things it can be used in desserts, light pastry, sweet salads, appetizers and other concoctions. We are still to exploit the potential of this unusual product. Then too there is the good old Swank—syrup and lime etc, waiting to be rediscovered.
Coconut water is naturally isotomic with the same level of electrolyte balance as found in our blood. It contains lauric acid found in mother’s milk, more potassium than most soft drinks, has less fat, no cholesterol, is high in chloride and is naturally sterile. These products are more healthy for the body than the most popular soft drinks on the market.
To start we would have to import citrus from the islands while growing the products we need, which is not a bad thing. It would generate revenue and employment, lower consumer prices and facilitate trade all around. As an added bonus the islands could end up buying more from us which would enhance our export earnings and reduce imports.
Will any of these projects come on stream? Don’t hold your breath. Some years ago Professor Francis noting the importance and value of agriculture beckoned Bajans to return to the land. The response was revealing: “…you expect our children with five or more ‘O Levels’ to work the land… you must be joking… We got people here to do that.” Not much has changed. We were born to wear collar and tie. Working the soil is a deadly sin.
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