The Tribune

A Cabinet minister was one of the main presenters at the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture’s (IICA) Living Soils Initiative.

Michael Pintard, minister of agriculture and marine resources, addressed an event that was held on December 4 to mark World Soil Day. It aims to encourage sustainable agricultural practices that can help reverse the degradation of soil around the world by promoting the use of climate and soil-resilient methods of farming.

Mr Pintard gave an update on The Bahamas' efforts to achieve some measure of soil management. The Bahamas has completed a "concept note" for review to the Global Environment Facility (GEF), entitled Integrated landscape management for addressing land degradation, food security and climate resilience challenges in The Bahamas.

The initiative is a collaborative effort between the Ministry of Agriculture and Marine Resources, Inter-American Institute for Co-Operation on Agriculture (IICA) and the Department of Environmental Planning and Protection that seeks to showcase a strengthened planning process and good practices within landscape areas that are subject to degradation.

Climate-smart agricultural systems to be piloted in this project will incorporate climate resilient crops and agroforestry systems, generating benefits that will include mitigating further biodiversity loss, enhancing carbon sequestration and soil carbon storage, and moisture retention that will contribute to soil health and productivity.

"The ministry is also working closely with IICA to implement the short SDG13: Climate Action project, whose main objective is training farmers and citizens in organic waste management and composting," Mr Pintard said.

"Since September 2020, the ministry and IICA have conducted two-day workshops on five different islands to train farmers in the science of composting. Demonstration sites have been established on each island, and are being monitored by the participants themselves, who have been taught to measure the moisture and temperature of their compost experiments with tools provided by the project.

"This project is ongoing and, as an encouragement to the participants, the compost being created will be sampled and sent to a lab to be analysed for educational purposes. It is through initiatives like this that we hope to create more citizen scientists and compost warriors to aid in creating more productive and healthy soils."

Mr Pintard hailed the IICA's efforts in educating Bahamian farmers on soil management techniques, which will help this nation meet the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goals. The IICA has hosted Bahamian farmers on New Providence, Abaco and Cat Island to seminars and workshops on soil management techniques, as well as practical training by IICA trainers.

The minister called for more collaboration to help strengthen the ecosystems of Caribbean countries. World Soil Day 2020 was celebrated on December 5.