Discussing the tearing up of prime agriculture land could not have been so well timed after Agrofest was held less than one week ago.
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Discussing the tearing up of prime agriculture land could not have been so well timed after Agrofest was held less than one week ago.
WHAT HAPPEN TO DLP 2008 MANIFESTO PROMISE OF THE 2/3 MAJORITY VOTE ON CHANGE OF LAND FROM AGRICULTURE? PERHAPS, THE DEVELOPERS WILL BE SMART ENOUGH TO OPEN A FOOD DISTRIBUTION COMPANY.AFTER PLANTING HOUSES ON ARABLE LAND. WHY USE ARABLE FOR HOUSING OVER RAB LAND? THIS LAND WAS SOLD AND THE PURCHASER DELIBERATELY LEFT IDLE OVER 7 YEARS. DO THESE ARISTOCRATS REALLY CARE OTHER THAN TO MAKE BAJANS NOW AND FUTURE GENERATIONS ECONOMIC SLAVES AIDED AND ABETTED BY GOVERNMENTS?
http://barbadosunderground.wordpress.com/2012/06/19/the-assault-on-arable-land-continues-under-both-political-parties/
Who are the principals behind Eastern Development and why was TPown Planning permission given to build house in the St. George Valley on prime agriculture land at this time?
I have heard (but cannot confirm) that this prime agricultural land being turned into housing lots is actually under the ownership/control of a well known and influential ruminant. Can anyone verify?
Town and Country Planning has always been very controversial with their decisions……it is whom you know.
I had problems with them the two times I had dealings with them. The last time a past head was really rude and obnoxious after keeping my plans for a long time…..you dont do that and then be rude and obnoxious…….I am a citizen of this country who play by the rules and no public servant can be obnoxious with me especially when he does not do his job……..
I see all kinds of buildings put in unbelievable places and I wonder who the hell is approving these plans. But there again, you have to know someone inside to get away with “murder”. Someone must have been given an incentive to change the land use of this land!
The land is owned by the name on the excavator currently being used to construct the roads. They are digging and digging and can’t find loam or rock. All that is being pushed aside is dark, rich soil. That plot of land produce cane, peanuts, yams, potatoes of premium quality. Will we eat concrete. All the old ruminant wants is $$$$ no though for Barbados. And the COW jump over the moon again.
First they came to Mount Wilton,and cut up prime agricultural land to put big houses on. I did not live anywhere near Mount Wilton so I rocked back and did nothing.
Next they came to Castle Grant, and cut up prime agricultural land to put big houses on. I did not live near Castle Grant, so I sat back and did nothing.
Then they came to Lower Grays, where I live, to cut up prime agricultural land to put big houses on…………………………………..
Still those people who are living on top of the hill, in the tenantry, on prime residential land, overlooking the picturesque St George Valley, are lucky not to be removed, like they did the people in 40 Acres in St Thomas some years ago.
Wha we gine eat ? | March 6, 2014 at 10:23 PM |
The land is owned by the name on the excavator currently being used to construct the roads. They are digging and digging and can’t find loam or rock.
………………………………………………………………………
But lets face it , our own government has started this trend. Take Lammings Housing Area in St Joseph. This was super prime agricultural land, where the Caterpillar used to plough through it like a hot knife in butter.The National Housing when building on it had to go down some 18 to 20 feet and more, before finding what would just pass for a foundation. And this exercise has been repeated all over the island.
@ Wha we gine eat ? | March 6, 2014 at 10:23 PM |
We should stop focusing on the owners of the land or those involved in the birth of another piece of concrete jungle next to the heart of the local bread basket namely the St. George valley.
No housing or commercial project involving change in land use can be undertaken without the approval of the Minister responsible for Town & Country Planning matters.
Now who is that minister other than Mr. Integrity?
St. Lucy and parts of St. Philip are ripe for that sort of housing development why St. George, again?
We Bajans deserve what we get. Majority voted in favour for this lot to manage our affairs.
They made some promises during the campaign which were impossible to fulfil, under the circumstances of the economic climate.
Most of us are fully aware , things can be done differently, if those decisions being made were discussed openly.
Here is ‘a GROUP of make belief’, having no moral compass, making decisions which will reverberate through generations to come.
Our educational system is failing or has failed some of us. Our offspring will be affected for many years, due to those bad decisions being made on our behalf.
We need to rid this lot from the realms of power before it becomes impossible to rescue this country from ruin.
When in opposition, this party was vocal in its condemnation of the other party, for, “Selling out to the highest bidder”. Appears to me as if this party has gone two steps backward, ‘giving away most of what we owned’, directly or indirectly to people with big bank accounts.
This is the time where we should be diversifying our economy; looking for ways to provide for a rainy day.We should be encouraging as many men/women as possible to become self sufficient in the hope of reducing our import bill.
Every week we can read or observe some indiscriminate use of our most precious of arable land being paved with concrete.
Bajans, please wake up from your slumber. Your are not dreaming, it is real. Soon, THIS LAND WILL NOT BE OUR OWN. Wake up, wake up.
They paved paradise
Put up a parking spot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hotspot
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
‘Til it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
Changing the use of land from Agricultural to Housing is asinine.
Rab land in these modern times can be used for Agriculture because you can build green houses on the so called “rab land”.
Food security is important. …Think.
@David
Permission for development of change of use of agricultural land of this size for development is not given by Town Planning but has to be passed to the Minister and he approves or disapproves. I believe that the Minister is supposed to make the decision based on advice from the Town & Country Planning Advisory Committee but the final decision is the Minister’s.
Anyone knows who is on the committee is and is the chairman?
According to this story in The Advocate of Feb 02, 2014 quoting Mr. Lennie St. Hill the Committee “has not been called upon for a meeting since October 2012. ”
http://www.barbadosadvocate.com/newsitem.asp?more=local&NewsID=34967
@Nostradamus
Let us face it has anything chanved regarding a land use policy in Barbados? Enters Enuff at tbis point.
WTF
Weeks after the 2008 general election that focused heavily on providing low-income housing, various ministers of gov’t drove around BDS pointing out bits of land to be compulsorily acquired for their voters new homes; this piece of land was one of those identified by the then-new minister of housing. An article in the Nation covered it at the time. In fact, several land owners responded to reports of trespass only to find a gov’t vehicle armada rambling around the countryside complete with ministers.
What Fumble’s Fools didn’t understand at the time was that the housing shortage in BDS is a man-made one; made by civil service inefficiencies that keep planning applications on civil servants’ desks for between 5 and 10 years. If simply finding land was the only problem there would be no problem; there will never be a shortage of land for housing until agriculture becomes profitable again.
The naivety would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
Baf…….my sentiments exactly….
@ paradox | March 6, 2014 at 10:55 PM |
We Bajans deserve what we get. Majority voted in favour for this lot to manage our affairs.
They made some promises during the campaign which were impossible to fulfil, under the circumstances of the economic climate………………
When in opposition, this party was vocal in its condemnation of the other party, for, “Selling out to the highest bidder”. Appears to me as if this party has gone two steps backward, ‘giving away most of what we owned’, directly or indirectly to people with big bank accounts…………………….
Bajans, please wake up from your slumber. Your are not dreaming, it is real. Soon, THIS LAND WILL NOT BE OUR OWN. Wake up, wake up……..
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paradox,
Excellent post.
Where are all the “big head” lawyers in Barbados. You mean to tell me that some of these lawyers cannot come together, examine our constitution to see if there is nothing there to force this government to resign or be force out for willfully lying to win an election?
After all, those who drafted the constitution may not be brighter and smarter as those we have today. I mean all of us know that these bunch of liars stole an election, they do not have a clue how to manage this country and we are going to sit back and let them continue to sink our island?
Are we all going to sit silently and let this destructive bunch of liars destroy our country? Let these people stay in their ivory towers and refuse to raise a finger to save Barbados. They may have to flee in the aftermath of the destruction. They probably have the means….the rest will suffer!
Kammie Holder | March 6, 2014 at 8:57 PM |
All what they doing is fraud ,To let land stand for 7 years that they not own nor bought from lying crooks, You all by not need to see the big picture of land games being played by lawyer and friends of Ministers.
@Prodigal Son
“Are we all going to sit silently and let this destructive bunch of liars destroy our country?”
Sadly, as it stands, the alternative is the other destructive bunch of liars
@ David
Not a word from me. All I shall say is that the act is discretionary in nature and two this explains why Hal’s grand renewal programme on the other blog would never come to fruition. But hey, many of us now live in houses on lands which were once fertile agriculture land too.
@paradox
Bajans, please wake up from your slumber. Your are not dreaming, it is real. Soon, THIS LAND WILL NOT BE OUR OWN. Wake up, wake up.
………………………………………………………………….
Too late sir. Instead of sounding the Reveille bugle call, it would be more appropriate to sound the Last Post .
@Prodigal Son
Isn’t the Opposition comprised of many lawyers?
What is preventing them from acting?
David………….because they too (BLP) did the same very shit when they have reins of power in Barbados, with the help of the DLP opposition, it is impossible for them to say anything to the DLP since they had longer to do the most damage.regarding land usage.
Prodigal
Yuh lost me with that selling out of land comment. Aint locals gine be buying the house spots?
http://youtu.be/FsP5EmMrTqk
remember what i was saying about HEMP-bio fuel to change barbados troubles. well .you must watch this full documentary and see what i was saying.
it fixes all barbados problems in one documentary.
you can all applause now..just remember who it came from.
now rich people get to work. ha ha
There i done more for barbados with this information than any prime minister has ever done.for free.
oh yes sell all the land to foreighners and have the chinese build it also.!!!
i have words—- but i refrain==.fools tread where wise men fear to go.
The rich under guise of providing low income housing using arable land with mortgages of 30 years. In come the same business men who will setup food distribution company to sell food to the same persons who he has sold house to. It’s deceitful to make gullible persons believe that they will all own a house. Why not use pepper corn high rise on a long lease basis with green spaces as it sure does make sense in the 166sq mile island?
What happens when land runs out for housing and the politicians continue with the HELP housing initiative as a vote catching ploy? 60 years from now I see a Barbados where economic inequality causes high crime and civil unrest. The youth of tomorrow who will no longer have access to free education and unable to live the dreams of middle income Bajans of the 80’s and 90’s will become economic slaves of the bajan oligarchy. Bajan politicians are corrupt and vision less.
I find the comments on this topic to be quite naive from people who should know better. You all are dwelling on the symptom and not addressing the problem. Consider the base economic question: ‘why is agricultural land for sale at any price?’
There can be no agriculture in Barbados without sugar cane, it is a grass rotation crop that rests land for everything else. No cane, no agriculture PERIOD. Many great men have tried alternatives and lost everything.
Sugar has lost money on the world market for decades, mainly because the marketing of Bajan sugar is state controlled and we sell a premium product in a commodities market. A debate for another day.
The growers will never receive the subsidies they need to make sugar profitable again, the large growers are mostly white (even if descended from redlegs) and no Bajan gov’t will ever support them.
Refer to point no 1. to clarify why a subsidy is necessary, at any price and in keeping with international convention.
Due to the above facts, the overseers, managers, tractor drivers, craftsmen, labourers have all migrated to the construction trade with much the same traditional skills, pay grades, cultures etc.
Construction depends on the same agriculture land to be used for different purposes except that it can only be used ONCE for this purpose.
There is no businessman on this Earth who would choose to sell a profitable asset that could guarantee and income annually in favour of a single windfall, except in cases of retirement or family splits. Go and ask the owners of any profitable Swan Street store to sell you a corner of their shop so you can ‘do your own thing’ if you need further reinforcement.
So, to be clear, all we need to do to ‘save our land’ is to guarantee a price for sugar that will make it BREAK EVEN. WE HAVE THE DATA TO DO THIS FROM 20 YEARS OF GOV’T MANAGEMENT OF 40% OF OUR AGRICULTURAL LAND. When this is done the problem of land use for agriculture will be solved, vegetables will be grown in enough volume to be profitable (1/4 to 1/5 of all cane land must be rotated out each year), construction workers will return to the agriculture industry employment and land for housing will become a scarcity again like in the 70s. As always the problem is a financial one.
@Frustrated Businessman
We have a government in waiting whose cry is to let land fetch its highest economic value. So where do we go from here?
Why are these things allowed to happen in barbados? Isn’t anyone going to get up and stand for anything? In a time when solid ideas are floating around the comments section of a blog…corruption and economic murder is being committed to our country. No one is doing anything…does the shit NEED to hit the fan before we wake up to the impending reality that those in power and opposition are just self serving bastards? Leaches to the highest bidder. It is sad, meanwhile a generation will be lost and no one cares.
http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2011/08/17/freedom-fuel-documntary-premieres/
http://thefreedomfilm.com/
http://thefuelfilm.com/
On the BBC this morning is a debate about whether ‘sugar is the new tobacco’ in terms of an uprising against it on health grounds. Like tobacco and alcohol, it is a luxury and ours is at the top in terms of taste quality. Any war will take out the weaklings first (corn syrup, sugar beet).
Add a few old-fashioned steam mills to grind it for the sake of tourism and some incentives to distil it like how small beer companies are springing up all over Europe and North America and we can soon have again a vibrant sugar industry.
What we DON’T need is a 300 million dollar (much of which will go missing) money pit of a new sugar factory controlled by the state and without cane to feed it. Private growers will never trust the state again.
The money could be better spent subsidizing small traditional mills on farms greater than 500 acres.
Do a Youtube search for compact or portable sugar mills like used in India to see what is possible. Sometimes you need to look back for ideas to move forward and our history is an asset, not a liability.
@ David; the ‘highest economic value’ will be realised in agriculture if sugar is subsidised.
Some round numbers.
Cane cost private growers BDS$120 per tonne last year, BAMC BDS$220 per tonne.
The factory pays about BDS$40 per tonne after they take out their grinding expenses from whatever they sell the sugar for as a comodity.
The gov’t offered private growers BDS$100 per tonne plus a new factory to take whatever they could grow. Most growers can’t break even at $100 nor do they trust the system to take their cane efficiently or pay them on time.
The obvious business solution is to put the growers back in charge of their own destiny. Use the Chinese money for the factory to finance smaller factories in 1,000 acre (25,000 tonne) blocks and guarantee the price of the sugar.
Question….was BBC referring to refined sugar or our Muscovado type sugar?
I listened to it as well and they never clarified the type.Presently brown sugar with its high molasses content is deemed to be healthy and the white sugar by virtue of chemicals used to be a serious health threat.
@Frustrated Businessman “What we DON’T need is a 300 million dollar (much of which will go missing)”
As a taxpayer I does feel real, real stink when my tax money goes missing.
If I want to waste my money I don’t any help from the government or the private sector to do so..
I can hole up at Sandy Lane with one of my many ex-boyfriends and a week’s supply of Viagra and waste my money myself
@David “We have a government in waiting whose cry is to let land fetch its highest economic value.”
David you know very well that when owing said so he was taking economic BS.
The highest economic value would mean no Bajans in Barbados. We would all have to hole up as refugees in Florida or worse still Nunavut and let rich Chinese take over de place.
Is that what we want?
That Barbados would become too good for ordinary Bajans to live here?
DavidyYa have to be discerning so that you realize when people are speaking with forked tongues.
Too much misinformed comments…sigh.
@James Paul, have your silence been bought?
The cracking of heads by the government police of Bajans who renounced docility is as certain as high level corruption in Bimshire.
Sorry to go off topic but has Freundel Stuart realize it’s March and the ailing sugar crop ain’t start yet and it will affect the sugar content and by extension the sugar yield the longer the canes remain unreaped.
@Young and Untrained, Barbados is at tipping point thanks to poor leadership and arrogance. Sorry to say but it’s inevitable when politicians put party and securing their pensions before country’s interest. Sad
“WHAT HAPPEN TO DLP 2008 MANIFESTO PROMISE OF THE 2/3 MAJORITY VOTE ON CHANGE OF LAND FROM AGRICULTURE?”
Long gone through the window with the other manifesto promises and even promises which were long ago implemented. But tell me Kammie how much land do we need to feed our people? If not the use of agricultural land, where would we get the land to build on to house our people? how is agricultural land defined from other land? how do we holistically apportion land for agricultural use and housing use? What crops would we concentrate on to satisfy the physical and consumption needs of the population? How would you go about changing the conspicuous consumption patterns of the majority not so weaned on agricultural produce? Having been conditioned to associate agricultural work with the slavery syndrome fuelled by the controversial ‘cane blade speech’, would we import labour to work the land? Deal with those for now.
Kammie, I am willing to put my support behind any campaign to control the indiscriminate spraying of crops and weeds to promote healthier living and safeguard the lives of the next generation of baby boomers by not having them exposed to the various illnesses now evident in the current generation no doubt as a result of chemical laced foods we eat and water we drink.
I was in a popular hardware in Warrens today, and was a bit surprised that we are still importing and stocking Herbicides and Pesticides labelled, “FOR EXPORT ONLY”
Food for thought.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/25/treating-soil-like-dirt-fatal-mistake-human-life