The Tribune

By NATARIO MCKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

SANDALS Emerald Bay’s general manager yesterday pledged that the resort was committed to working with Exuma farmers to purchase locally grown produce, one telling Tribune Business that the biggest challenge for the island’s agricultural sector was marketing their products locally.

The issue was raised by Benjamin Rolle, operator of Moses Farm, a family farm in Mount Thompson, Exuma, during yesterday’s Exuma Business Outlook conference.

Mr Rolle told this newspaper: “The biggest problem farmers have on Exuma is getting the product to market, especially locally. There is no problem getting it to the Nassau market; the problem with that is the price is lower.

“For example, $15 a box for tomatoes and sweet pepper, whereas here you get $30 a box once you can get it sold. The biggest consumer for that here is Sandals. I have spoken with them over and over again on that issue.

“They say they want us to come together as an association. The problem is the association doesn’t have the means to market the stuff and get it to Sandals. The individual farmer has to deal with it themselves, but they don’t want to deal with you. They have to deal with individual farmers until such time as the association can function.”

Mr Rolle added: “The quality of our product far surpasses anything they can bring in, and it’s price competitive.”

He said that wide ranges of produce are grown on his farm, including onions, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, hot peppers, cassava and watermelon.

“We are even doing corn to try and get locally produced grits. There is a future here for farming, but the local corporate consumers have to co-operate a little more,” Mr Rolle said.

“Once we get that sorted out I think the future is kind of bright. We do about 10 acres of vegetables, and then we have access to another 100 acres where we are going to do some citrus production, probably in another year or so. This year we hope to do as much as 500 boxes of hot pepper. That’s a really good crop. There’s a lot of money in that, and the work is not so hard either.”

Jeremy Mutton, head of Sandals Emerald Bay, told Tribune Business that open dialogue was needed between the farmers and Sandals.

Speaking on the issue, he said: “I think a lot of the time it’s just the lack of communication. Certainly, I feel much more confident now with the Farmer’s Association; they seem a lot more organised.

“When you have such credible, organised bodies you can work much more closely with them. If the Farmer’s Association comes to me and says: ‘Let us see what your volume is, let us see what we can do for you’, that’s the kind of healthy dialogue we need.”

Mr Mutton added: “On some of the other islands in which we operate we actually have an ‘Adopt the Farmer’ programme where we actually give the seeds to the farmers with a guarantee that we will buy the crops back. That’s really the type of partnership we should be looking at.

“I think there’s room for improvement on both sides, and today was part of it. I have spoken with the Farmer’s Association president here on Exuma, and we have arranged a meeting next week with my team and some of the farmers so we can work in partnership.

“As a company we like to buy locally, if nothing else because the goods are going to be fresher.

“I’m confident that good things will come out of it.”