The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

FTX Digital Markets announced a $1.1m donation to the newly created non-government, not-for-profit, Agricultural Development Committee.

Ryan Salame, CEO of FTX, said the company is excited to be in The Bahamas and to be “a good, responsible company” that gives back to the community.

He said food scarcity was an issue the company wants to help address.

“A few key items came up often and food scarcity was one of them,” he told reporters at a press conference.

“So we looked around and searched (for) who was a prominent person or organisation... and I think Philip Smith came up quite frequently. A lot of people had memories of him giving out food throughout their childhood or sort of throughout their lives here in The Bahamas so I think it was an easy decision from that perspective (to) meet with him and decide the best path forward,” he said.

Philip Smith, the former executive director of the Bahamas Feeding Network, serves as the executive chairman of the Agriculture Development Committee. He said the group is excited and pleased to have partners like FTX and Mr Salame, who is on the board and on the steering committee of the Agricultural Development Committee.

“It’s surely going to do a lot for us,” Mr Smith told the media about the donation. “I can focus more on things that need to be done for farmers rather than having to raise money immediately and you know we’d like to extend an invitation to the business community to look at matching this donation.

“You know agriculture in this country hasn’t really succeeded ever and it’s just unfortunate because people must eat. I have been feeding the poor for the last 16 years through (the) Bahamas Feeding Network. I just resigned from my position as executive director to become executive chairman of this new organisation.

“I know for a fact that there are many people in this country that every day it’s a challenge….the Department of Statistics six years ago said there was 12.8 percent of persons in the country suffered from hunger, but it is my belief after doing this for the last 20 years going through the pandemic it is my belief that there is probably 20 percent of our population that every day there is that challenge of ‘What do I eat today?’

“What we were doing through the Bahamas Feeding Network every day you were having to raise money in order to feed persons, but this new initiative, I believe that it will be a lot more sustainable in that we’re going to support backyard farming, community farming, and, of course, commercial farming.”

Mr Smith added that for the first three months of the committee’s work, the plan is to carry out research; $700,000 has been set aside for the farmers whether it’s for education, technology, or tools.

Also present at yesterday’s press conference was Parliamentary Secretary Leonardo Lightbourne, who highlighted that a part of the donation will go towards making agriculture more innovative and attractive to the younger generation.

“As you know in The Bahamas, about 80 percent of our farmers are 60 years old. So it speaks to why we’re having that deficit in feeding ourselves. So we’re probably going to make this very attractive to the younger folks. It’s viable that when they come out of high schools, colleges, and universities that, hey, it’s a job and something that we can look forward to.”

Earlier this week, FTX donated $1.5m in KN95 protective masks and testing kits to the Bahamian government to help in the fight against COVID-19.

FTX Digital Markets, a digital asset exchange, opened its office in western New Providence late last year.