Submitted by Bentley I’m sure you must have seen this article from GIS (see below). While I totally agree with the need to address food security by regional leaders much more is needed to be done if we are to ever come close to satisfying the food requirements of the region from regional sources. With specific reference to Barbados there
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Russia’s war in Ukraine will disrupt commerce and clog up supply chains, slashing economic growth and pushing prices sharply higher around the globe, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) warned Thursday….the 38-country OECD said that over the next year, the conflict would reduce gross domestic product (GDP) — the broadest measure of economic output — by 1.08 percent
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There is a popular saying “God helps those who help themselves“. The pandemic has been with us almost 2 years, we know any pandemic is likely to disrupt the global supply chain. We know Barbados is a significant importer of food, over the years successive governments have paid lip service to prioritizing food security. It is cheaper to import than
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The Governor of the Central Bank of Barbados Cleviston Haynes will deliver the quarterly review of Barbados’ economy, next Wednesday, October 28 at 11:00 AM. In recent years Barbadians have become numb to the performance of the economy as we battle with a high debt to GDP, high unemployment, low national productivity to name three key performance indicators. The pandemic
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Submitted by Heather Cole Heather Cole is asking for the public’s support to ensure the success of a food security project at the Todds Plantation. Dear Prospective Investors and Members, Although the conception of the People’s Agricultural and Business Co-op was done prior to COVID-19, we did not anticipate that our fears would have been realized months
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The following blog reflects concern about food security in a Trinidad and Tobago context, however, the message rings true for the majority of countries in the region including Barbados. It raises the perennial concern that Caricom has not been able to implement solutions to address concerns about the need for food security for its member. Thanks to Tee White sharing
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Submitted by Freedom Crier Investigate the production (oil palm) as the replacement for sugar cane production including on hilly or semi-arid lands. The infrastructure that we have in sugar plantations is the same as required for this type plantation crop and we have an oil processing plant in Barbados i.e. Roberts Manufacturing. Just a small amount of retooling is
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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
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Of recent North Korea’s supreme leader Kim Jong Un has become the focal point of USA’s foreign policy. Not long ago it was Saddam Hussein of Iraq, a country that was invaded based on a lie. There were no weapons of mass destruction stupid! The wonton destruction of property dated to the period of Babylonia is enough to challenge those
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Submitted by Baird’s Village Aquaponics Association (BVAA) This is an overview of the plan for the building of a privately owned aquaponics industry capable of providing 100% of Barbados’s locally consumed herbs and vegetables; We invite you to our open day on June 10th time 7 till 11 or 1 till 5 to take a close look at the future
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Hardly a week seems to go by without one or two prominent figures calling for, or in some cases demanding, more use of local produce by our tourism industry and especially restaurants. First, I absolutely and totally support this objective but I wonder if the energy expended in trying to make this happen is entirely well placed or in fact truly balanced.
Some time ago the dairy farmers were complaining about being forced to accept lower prices and reduced quotas, the virtual monopoly milk processing entity unilaterally stopped making yogurts locally, pretty much a basic serving menu article in most hotels and alternative accommodation offerings. No-one can convince me that it is cheaper to bring in a foreign made refrigerated alternative across 6,000 or more miles by road and ship and for the wholesale distributors to always disperse them within the stated sell by date. There has to be waste and spoilage.
I also understand the economics of mass branded cheeses like Cheddar, but surely there are specialty items that can be made locally like double cream, feta and cottage cheese which are largely imported with a huge drain of foreign currency.
Submitted by Damien Hinkson My first true commercial farm upgrade to aquaponics (AP) is complete, the first of many more as the commercial farmers are rushing to exploit the labor saving qualities of AP. This type of farming comfortably puts you in the .3 to .7 worker per acre range, amazingly, with no additional labour skill sets required. This reduction
Read more“It has been reported that Barbados current food import bill is in the region of $800 million dollars annually. The Minister of Agriculture has also stated that 65 percent of our food is produced locally. This means we import 35 percent of our food. Our total food bill is therefore almost $2.3 billion dollars annually. This translates to over $20
Read moreThe following extract about Aquaponics submitted by Ready done Aquaponic farming dates back to the Aztecs but due to the currently available combination of cheap plastics and Magnetic drive pumps it was recently re-discovered and improved upon as a viable organic farming method. The system is designed to hold fresh water fish in tanks, in conjunction with plants in large
Read moreSubmitted by Bentley Norville With all the recent and current talk on agriculture and our gargantuan food import bill a serious rethink on how we acquire our food is urgently required. With our food import bill around 800 to 900 million dollars a year we cannot afford not to. When we look at agriculture as it’s now practiced we recognise
Read moreIn the last six years Barbados has been consumed by an unprecedented type of polarising politics. It is a politics which has reordered national priorities. No longer are decisions made on the basis of what is important on the national front but more to do with what is politically expedient. Political pundits had warned that the 2-seat majority government which
Read more“Trini, I’m a born Barbadian, I don’t like to fight But when it comes to the occasion, man, I stick fuh muh right You put in a twelve-cents meat bone, you worse than a liceI gine give you a word of advice, “Take your meat out muh rice!” Lord Kitchener Today, Barbados spends almost a billion dollars importing food from
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