est. 2007

Barbados Underground

Bringing News and Opinions to the People

,

Is Agriculture and Food Security Important?

The Ministry of Agriculture under the leadership of David Estwick in the former government became an invisible ministry. While we accept that a lack of resources would have impacted how government carried out its business, a nation that relegates food security to the back burner should expect to be haunted by the decision in a…

, ,
stpn-i-weir-blp
Indar Weir, Minister of Agriculture and Food Security

The Ministry of Agriculture under the leadership of David Estwick in the former government became an invisible ministry. While we accept that a lack of resources would have impacted how government carried out its business, a nation that relegates food security to the back burner should expect to be haunted by the decision in a volatile global sphere.

How difficult is it to cultivate linkages between locally produced agriculture, tourism, government (Barbados School Meals, Queen Elizabeth Hospital) and the wider community to guarantee sufficient demand? What is the scorecard of the Barbados Agriculture Society (BAS)? The output from the agriculture sector based on the central bank reports tracking GDP by Sector and Acticity has not shown any appreciable increase in the last decade.

A few weeks ago BU family member Bentley Norville shared the following document to poke those currently responsible to prioritized matters pertaining to agriculture. We hope current minister of agriculture and FOOD SECURITY Indar Weir takes heed.

278 responses to “Is Agriculture and Food Security Important?”

  1. Are-we-there-yet Avatar
    Are-we-there-yet

    “emblematic” should have been “predictive” in the second last paragraph above.

  2. John Avatar
    John

    The Fall of the Barbados Planter Class: An Interpretation of the 1980s Crisis in the Barbados Sugar Industry

    https://www.jstor.org/stable/3745133?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

    This paper by Robert Goddard, a Bajan Goddard, is worth a read and helps you understand why we are where we are.

  3. Are-we-there-yet Avatar
    Are-we-there-yet

    John;

    I pass!!

    I know nothing of the big foot moves by the super corporations.

    Tell we, nuh.

    But Government took extremely big losses in sugar over decades to earn foreign exchange for the benefit of the entire society and fuel development in Tourism, the Offshore sector and other important sectors. Is this ploy by Sagicor a variant of that Government policy designed to ultimately benefit Sagicor’s balance sheets or is it a nationalistic (Huh, I can’t be serious) modernization of the old Government policy.

  4. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    Oatmeal porridge and slices of mango for breakfast. It should have been homegrown cornmeal porridge, but the monkeys have stopped me from growing corn. A relative bought me a $5 share of pudding and souse and breadfruit, and a mango juice for lunch. Yummy!!! Dinner is chicken stuffed with Eclipse biscuits and my own home grown herbs, green pigeon peas [from a sibling] and rice, and the last of the kale and pumpkin as a side dish.

  5. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    Brown rice, not white.

  6. bajans Avatar
    bajans

    Simple, yuh meking muh hungry. I had fresh tuna with peri-peri sauce and biscuits, a julie mango and a pint of tea for breakfast. For lunch, a roll with cream cheese, lox and the fixings with perrier water. For dinner, I will have some spareribs with 6 grain rice and steamed rapini and callaloo. it is good to see you are still eating three meals a day. Most Bajans can only afford one good meal in the middle of the day.

  7. John Avatar
    John

    I know nothing of the big foot moves by the super corporations.

    Tell we, nuh.

    ++++++++++++++++++++++

    Lesson 1

    Increasing labour costs since WWII tended to price Barbados out of the world sugar market.

    That occurred during the rise of the Union post WWII at a time when the world could not get enough sugar and prices were high.

    Sugar could afford it.

    But sugar took its major hit in the early 1980’s because of a devaluation, not of the Barbados dollar but of the EU!!

    The Barbados $ was tied to the US $ and the EU was devalued by almost a half against the US $.

    Overnight sugar revenues for Barbados in Barbados $ and US $ were almost halved.

    Even if sugar was breaking even back then, a loss in revenue of that order of magnitude was fatal.

    The sensible thing to have done back then was to stop growing sugar.

    Indeed, some owners chose to shut down and get out of sugar rather than go into debt so foreign exchange could be earned.

    The Government stepped in with the 1982 BNB Act which lent indebted plantations money to make up their shortfall in revenue.

    Why, because Barbados needed the forex.

    Perhaps over 90% of the foreign exchange earned by sugar stays in Barbados whereas Tourism, with its high imported content meant that very little of the foreign tourist $ stays in Barbados.

    So sugar was vital, its earnings may have been smaller wrt Tourism but the forex was vital.

    Sugar support prices were agreed with the UK which cushioned the blow of the devaluation.

    The result was that the plantations sunk into debt to the BNB …. if you get here you can figure out what happened next and I won’t need to do Lesson 2!!

  8. John Avatar
    John

    If you read the article you will see the following.

    “The Barbados sugar industry started the decade of the 1980’s with more than $100 minion in assets and less than $750,000 in outstanding debts. It controlled 35,000 of the island’s total area of 106,000 acres, employed 6,000 people, and generated $35 million a year in foreign exchange. Yet by 1986 the industry was bankrupt, and in 1992 a management takeover by the British company Booker Tate was accepted by the board of directors of Barbados Sugar Industry Limited (BSIL).”

    You will also see

    “Therefore. the Sugar Industry (Support Price) Act of 1982 specified an ingenious scheme whereby loans extended to sugar growers could be converted into outright grants if the planters agreed to maintain or increase production.
    During periods of low prices, this had the apparently perverse effect of encouraging farmers to keep production high. The premise of the plan, however, was that the low prices; caused mainly by currency fluctuations, were not in themselves a reason to cut production; the reflected exchange-rate instability rather than the lack of viability of the sugar industry itself. The plan also reflected a global concern with maintaining the factory infrastructure during the period of relative currency devaluation until prices returned to their historic levels. The plan was engineered by the Barbados Ministry of Finance, acting on the advice of a sugar advisor under government contract. Although the plan was accepted by the industry, many
    growers failed to appreciate the needs of the factory sector when planning production.”

  9. David Avatar
    David

    Are we not discussing the importance of agriculture and food security? Sugar was king when there was preferential treatment read the Lome Agreement. The world has moved on!

  10. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    @de pedantic Dribbler June 30, 2018 6:49 AM “why the need for a new investigatory body anyhow?”

    If all you know is hammer, then all problems are nails. If you are a lawyer, then you think that all problems can be solved by new laws. So yes sireee!! We will end up with a new body, just as ineffective as the old bodies, simply because these new bodies are conceived of and run by lawyers just like the old bodies.

    And in a few years someone will ask “Wha’ happen?”

    Integrity has to be taught principally by parents, but also by teachers ideally before the age of 4, and continuing through elementary school.

    All laws can do is punish after the fact. After the t’ieving dun happen a’ready.

    Neither old laws nor new can assure integrity in those who have not been taught integrity in infancy and early childhood.

  11. John Avatar
    John

    Sugar and food crops are merely parts of agriculture.

    Most of the food grown in Barbados is grown in conjunction with cane.

    Go look at the lands of Barbados Farms.

  12. David Avatar
    David

    You understand that food security and agriculture is more than planting sugar and other crops in dirt?

  13. akenatenI Avatar
    akenatenI

    https://youtu.be/K5Q-IM8P99Y

  14. Georgie Porgie Avatar
    Georgie Porgie

    JOHN
    I ENJOY YOUR HISTORY LESSONS
    KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK
    REMINDS ME OF THE STOP AND STARE WALKS I ATTENDED
    DONT LET ANYONE INHIBIT YOU WITH YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS
    NOTE INHIBITORS CAN ONLY INHIBIT
    AN INHIBITOR CAN ATTACH TO ACTIVE SITES BUT CANT FORM AN ES COMPLEX AND SO THE REACTION IS NOT CATALYSED
    SAME THING HERE

  15. John Avatar
    John

    David
    June 30, 2018 5:04 PM

    You understand that food security and agriculture is more than planting sugar and other crops in dirt?

    ++++++++++++++++++++

    Sho’nufff!!!!

  16. John Avatar
    John

    … and that’s why I drew the distinction SS cottoned on to when I earlier said you need to understand how to get the land to work for you …. even though as SS pointed out you have to work the land!!

    It may seem a contradiction in terms but get that understanding and Bob’s your uncle and your work is a pleasure.

    You’ll get all the food you need with surplus.

  17. David Avatar
    David

  18. John Avatar
    John

    I know nothing of the big foot moves by the super corporations.
    Tell we, nuh.
    +++++++++++++++++++++++++

    Why is it that two large corporations bought so much land … Sagicor bought Barbados Farms and CLICO bought up St. John!!

    Because with sugar in terminal decline the land in many people’s eyes became a commodity, valuable beyond imagination for housing and development.

    It was kind of like a land grab.

    Why would Sagicor continue to operate the land in sugar at a loss when most plantations are out of it?

    Because I think they want permissions to develop!!

    The profits they will make are way in excess of any losses in Sugar.

    If you remember, CLICO kept the lands in St. John in good husbandry until it collapsed.

    I think both “super corporations” were prepared to experience the pain for the gain.

    But, I suspect the expectations will be dampened by H2O …. no water, restricted development.

    We will see what happens as time goes by.

  19. Are-we-there-yet Avatar
    Are-we-there-yet

    John, re. your June 30th 10:54 pm post;

    But that was obvious. That was something most plantations have been doing themselves for decades. That is no new bigfoot strategy!

    Yuh fool muh. I was looking for you proposing some real bigbrain and bigfoot moves.

    Wuhloss!

    But asymetric regulatory controls could also stymie dem. Mia could put new (or old) Leadership in place at the Town and Country planning department in duh tail (where is mark cummins). She could quickly get new Land Development orders in place; Zonal developmental controls, Food Security Orders that would restrict movement of large blocks of land out of Agriculture could also work but Piece might veto dat. In fact, the Government already has a methodology that can be used to frustrate the CLICO’s and Sagicor’s and their ilk, through the provisions and well used procedures vested in the change of (Land) Use suite of administrative actions that has been in the control of the PM for decades. Water availability is just one arrow in a PM’s quiver that could negate such an obvious policy.

  20. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    John,
    Insurance companies in Barbados could afford in such illiquid assets because of poor regulation. Nothing has changed.

  21. Are-we-there-yet Avatar
    Are-we-there-yet

    Hal re. your 8:39 post above.

    Not only insurance agencies but even retired journalists with an excess of liquid assets, like you or HarHoyte (just taking two names out of a hat), could probably invest in such illiquid assets at some levels that, even though not comparable with the potential of such entities as Insurance companies or even some individuals such as some Medical doctors or the numerous lawyers with 6 figure briefs or the estates of some like DT, could make such investments, awaiting the time when they must become liquid, with a vengeance.

    Would you also invoke poor regulatin in such cases? Is it only poor regulation that might be at fault? Is that the sole defining characteristic of insurance companies in Barbados?

  22. Peter Webster Avatar
    Peter Webster

    The sugar crisis did not start in the 1980s. There was an article published in the Nation in 1971 which warned the Barrow Government that the Sugar Industry Act approved by parliament in that same year (1971) would destroy the “goose that had laid the golden egg” it did just that! Subsequently a report by international consultants (Landel Mills) in 1979 set out quite clearly how the 1971 Sugar Industry Act had totally undermined the Sugar Industry in Barbados.

  23. Is Agriculture and Food Security Important? — Barbados Underground – SunnyjoeGlobal

    […] via Is Agriculture and Food Security Important? — Barbados Underground […]

  24. Ann-Marie Sweeney Avatar
    Ann-Marie Sweeney

    How can a country not ensure food security for its people? Shameful.

  25. Random Repeat Avatar
    Random Repeat

    Reblogged this on .

  26. Is Agriculture and Food Security Important? — Barbados Underground – IRONCLADENTGROUP.COM

    […] via Is Agriculture and Food Security Important? — Barbados Underground […]

  27. Is Agriculture and Food Security Important? — Barbados Underground – Writing in New Media

    […] via Is Agriculture and Food Security Important? — Barbados Underground […]

  28. Is Agriculture and Food Security Important? — Barbados Underground – Food Defense Corps, Nigeria

    […] via Is Agriculture and Food Security Important? — Barbados Underground […]

Older Comments
1 … 4 5 6

The blogmaster invites you to join the discussion.

Trending

Discover more from Barbados Underground

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading