By Sheria Brathwaite
Farmers want to know just how much food will be needed as Barbados prepares to host the International Cricket Council T20 World Cup in June, the chief executive officer of the Barbados Agricultural Society said Monday.
While touring Queen’s Park, the site of Agrofest, the national agricultural exhibition which will take place February 23-25, James Paul told reporters the farming community should know ahead what was required of them so they could plan production accordingly.
Failing to provide the numbers could lead to shortages, which Paul claimed would give merchants an “excuse” to rely on imported food.
“We would like to sit down with the supermarkets, restaurants [and] hotels and get an idea of what they think is the consequential demand as a result of that and not leave it for us to guess,” he said.
“If we don’t do that, it means that we will make business for importers and farmers overseas. What we want to do is to reach a situation where farmers can equip themselves to take 100 per cent of the benefit of the World Cup here this year. But the only way we can do that is to get the cooperation of the stakeholders in the market.”
Paul accused merchants of withholding information and then complaining to the Minister of Agriculture or the Prime Minister that the farmers were failing to meet expectations, requiring them to import food.
“[It’s] the game of trying to catch you,” he declared. “The importers are trying to basically make the agricultural sector look bad. We need to move away from that type of behaviour.”
Amid concerns about a decline in poultry production in the past week, the BAS chief said he hoped this situation would not be used against farmers: “What I don’t want to see happen and what I think should not be happening is a situation where people use this as an opportunity to justify the reason for imports because this is what I see, this is the direction in which I see it is heading in which people are using the opportunity of the fact that [farmers] are having difficulties [and say] they can’t do it. It is not [that] they can’t do it. We need the information in order to be able to do it. We are part of the private sector in the same way, respect us.”
Paul told reporters he would like to receive information on the tournament’s demand levels “now”, as he recalled food supply issues during the 2007 Cricket World Cup.
As consumers complained of low quantities of poultry in stores, the executive of the Barbados Egg and Poultry Producers’ Association (BEPPA), while denying a shortage, gave an assurance that the issue would be rectified within three weeks.
BEPPA said farmers were experiencing growth challenges that were affecting their ability to get the birds market-ready. The association promised an investigation into what was causing the birds’ sluggish growth.
Paul said the issue prompted a need for a testing laboratory to help farmers know what was affecting their animals.
He said: “[This raises] the whole question of the lab, a functional laboratory that can actually assist in terms of [determining] if there’s an issue, finding out what exactly are the issues and how we can resolve them. Some farmers claim it’s the feed . . . but on the other hand, I had a chat with a large poultry grower and he said that was not the case. There are others who might tell you that is not the case, but the point is really that we need to have actual verifiable evidence that can be relied on; it cannot be based on hearsay.”
The BAS CEO added that the industry must also look
within and take steps to improve the health of animals
on farms.
“One of the things is that we like to be very sensational,” Paul told reporters. “No farmer believes he is at fault and, of course, the feed [company] doesn’t feel that it’s their fault. And then the hatchery is [also of that same view]. So we’ve got to look at the whole industry as a whole to see how we can perform better and do better.”
(SZB)
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