The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Science Institute (BAMSI) is getting set to release its Agribusiness 2021 plan, which its president yesterday pledged will put Bahamian agriculture “on a path to sustainability”.

Dr Godfrey Eneas told Tribune Business that BAMSI was in the process of restarting Bahamian pork and poultry production, warning: “You cannot continue to take food for granted.”

His comments to this newspaper followed the Government’s decision on Tuesday to place an immediate ban on all meat imports from Brazil, in the wake of a health and corruption scandal impacting that nation’s export processing industry.

“Right now we have a small ruminants programme, and we are going to soon start pork and poultry production to restart the sector,” Dr Eneas said.

“You cannot continue to take food for granted. I am thankful that the country is at last awakening to the fact that we need to be more self sufficient. We have identified 32 crops and four livestock species that we can become more self-sufficient in.”

He added: “We need to wake up to the fact that the Trump administration is proposing to cut the the USDA (Department of Agriculture) budget by 21 per cent. They are reducing expenditure in areas like food safety, research and international food aid.”

Dr Eneas stressed that the Bahamas must become more self-sufficient in its food production, and said: “We will be coming out shortly with Agribusiness 2021, which will lead the path to self-sufficiency. We are going to put agriculture on a new and sustainable path.”

He added that the plan would be made available in two to three week, and suggested he was not surprised by the Brazil meatpacking scandal, arguing that the Caribbean has long been a dumping ground for poor quality foreign chicken, particularly Brazilian chicken.

“The Caribeban Poultry Association has been aware of this for years,” Dr Eneas said. “They have had national governments and Caricom regard poultry, for example, as a sensitive commodity.

“Poultry is the largest agri-business in Caricom. It employs almost 100,000 people. CARICOM governments are not going to allow foreign poultry to destabilise their markets.

“What they instituted is that the product that is imported must have date of slaughter. What has been happening is that four, five and six year-old chickens have been dumped on the region,” he continued.

“This has been facilitated by unscrupulous importers who are not concerned about the health of consumers in the region; they are only concerned about profits. Previous administrations instituted a duty reduction policy which destroyed the country industry of the Bahamas.”

Brazilian authorities have said that several major meat processors in that country have been “selling rotten beef and poultry”, and bribing inspectors to allow the contaminated product through into the food chain.

The Brazilian authorities have reportedly suspended 33 government officials over the allegations, which claim these practices have been ongoing for years.

Three meat processing plants have been closed, and another 21 are said to be under investigation, with exports from all suspended.

More than 30 companies have been accused of unhygienic practices, including JBS, the world’s largest beef exporter, and BRF, the world’s top poultry producer. The companies have denied the allegations.