The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The government's 2020-2021 budget allocation for agriculture shows it "can't be serious" about improving The Bahamas' food security, a well-known financial analyst says.

Anthony Ferguson, CFAL's principal, speaking on a webinar hosted by the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Society of The Bahamas, said: "You can always tell from a budget how serious governments really are, and they are not serious. It is very, very clear.

"Poultry imports are about $80m a year. Fresh fruits, etc, is a couple of hundred million, yet the increase in the budget for agriculture and fisheries was a little over $500,000. They just can't be serious. So until we are prepared to get serious, I think we will continue to find ourselves putting our heads in the sand and finding that the economy is going to continue to grow slower, slower, slower with the increasing deficits."

The government has barely increased the size of the Ministry of Agriculture and Marine Resources' allocation, raising it from $26.068m to $26.252m, despite including a new $6m "line item" for "food security". A further $3m has been added to this effort on the capital side of the budget, but the subsidies provided to the Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Science Institute (BAMSI) and Bahamas Agricultural and Industrial Corporation (BAIC) have been cut by a combined $2.45m.

Mr Ferguson added: "The last time I checked in Israel, they were in the desert and they have some of the best agricultural products globally. If you put the right resources in poultry and egg farming, for instance, within 12 months to 18 months you can be certainly well on your way to creating an alternative industry that creates employment opportunities."

Turning his attention to measures announced by Michael Pintard, minister for agriculture and marine resources who said the government is looking to mandate within Heads of Agreements that foreign investors purchase up to 40 percent of their produce locally, Mr Ferguson said: "If you talk about imposing on these Heads of Agreements that we mandate that you have to purchase a certain amount of goods, fruits and vegetables and agricultural products as part of their purchases globally, we can reduce our imports and, of course, preserve some of our foreign reserves."