The Tribune

• Bahamas must target over $50m import substitutions

• Agro entrepreneur: ‘We’re getting second grade foods’

• ‘Vision’ required to feed seven million tourist arrivals

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas must “stop fattening the pockets” of foreign food suppliers by enabling its farmers to exploit more than $50m worth of meat and vegetable possibilities, an agriculture entrepreneur argued yesterday.

Caron Shepherd, the Bahamas Agro Entrepreneurs Group’s president, told Tribune Business there were multiple import substitution opportunities to expand Bahamian agriculture given the seven million-plus tourist “mouths to feed” in addition to the country’s 400,000-strong population.

“We’re fattening other people’s pockets when we could be doing what they’re doing here, and they’re sending us second grade foods when we produce first grade foods here,” she blasted. “They [the farmers] are ready to take advantage of it. It’s just providing the opportunity and funding for it.

“The mere fact that the market is there, the mouths we have to feed. We have 7.2m people coming to The Bahamas annually plus 400,000 residents. That is a lot of mouths to feed. If we cannot see that we have a market we need to capitalise on by having the farmers increase their productivity and produce then, obviously, there’s no vision coming from the Government to do this.

“We have, as farmers, taken the initiative to do what we need to do and seek funding elsewhere to upgrade our technology and enhance our knowledge. We’ve just put some feelers out there to seek funding to do what we need to do the best we can to improve ourselves as farmers. We’re seeking funding to do what we have to do as a group.”

Ms Shepherd spoke following her recent address to a Farmers Market staged by the Tourism Development Corporation, where she highlighted multi-million dollar opportunities for Bahamian farmers to replace imports in key market segments.

Drawing on 2021 data, she identified the $25.34m worth of whole chickens, drumsticks and wings imported into The Bahamas that year as a key segment where local producers can make inroads. “The facts tell the rest of the story,” Ms Shepherd said. “I’ll just drop a few nuggets out to you all today. Our imports, just on a few very easy items, some of you are going to be surprised but be that as it may...

“We had a period where we imported coconut trees to a value of $3m. I can tell you that God is admonishing us to find coconut trees. God is admonishing us to find coconut trees in our yards.” She added that it was “amazing to me” that, in 2021, The Bahamas imported some 8.446m pounds of potatoes valued at a collective $6.892m, the latter of which represented foreign exchange earnings leaving this nation.

The country also purchased some 4.495m pounds of tomatoes, worth a total $5.883m, from overseas producers as well as 5.66m pounds of onion and garlic valued at $5m. Romaine lettuce worth $2.175m, and amounting to 1.616m pounds, was also acquired from outside The Bahamas. “If we calculated all the lettuce, the value of imports during the period I am talking about is $7m,” Ms Shepherd said.

She added that The Bahamas also imported some 2.211m pounds of mushrooms for 2021, plus 3.864m pounds of bell peppers worth $4.128m. Five million pounds of bananas were sourced from overseas, plus 2.252 million pounds of plantains.

Ms Shepherd, though, said the most lucrative opportunity for Bahamian farmers was in meat production - -chicken, ham, turkey, sheep and goats. Besides the $25m-plus worth of chicken imports, she pointed to $3m or 706,000 pounds of sheep meat and added: “You know what those Long Island boys could be doing with sheep right now.

Goat meat imports were said to be worth $2m, or 900,000 pounds, and turkey some $2m. Egg imports stood at over five million pounds or $5.118m. “While we are making others’ pockets fat we are neglecting the fact that we as a small yet powerful nation need to increase our productivity,” Ms Shepherd said.

“Other countries are ensuring they are developing their sustainability for food, and exporting second grade food. Tremendously expanding our agriculture and fisheries sector is imperative almost to the point of our survival. Sustainability is crucial for us.”

With The Bahamas about to celebrate its 50th independence anniversary this year, Ms Shepherd added: “As a country we have digressed. We have lost our stronghold in agriculture. We have lost our citrus, chicken, egg, sheep, goats, ham. It is now time to regain out foothold in this industry.

“We have heard over and repeatedly we have to eat healthy, we need to have a healthy diet and grow more food, supply more food. All of that is correct. What are we doing about this as a nation?” She pointed to a recently-unveiled United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) study which found 17.2 percent of Bahamians suffered “moderate to severe food insecurity” between 2019-2021 at COVID-19’s height.

While The Bahamas was far from the most food insecure nation in the Western Hemisphere, with just 3.4 percent (around 18,000) of the population found to have experienced “severe” problems during that period, these concerns were worsened by the fact that this country has the region’s greatest level of obesity among its adult population. The FAO report found that that 31.6 percent of Bahamian adults, close to one-third, were deemed obese.

“One in five persons go to bed hungry in The Bahamas,” Ms Shepherd said. “Many people have malnutrition in The Bahamas for lack of nutritious food. It is abundantly clear that we need to put in place a sustainable and effective food production system to eliminate the lack of nutritious food; a food system that works for our people and food security, and which creates a healthy and balanced diet.”

Disclosing that the Bahamas Agro Entrepreneurs Group includes some 300 farmers, she added: “We know the deficiencies we have. One of the deficiencies we have is consistency. We have taken the challenge of eliminating that problem by coming together as a group. If one person doesn’t have it, we will definitely find someone else who has it. We are still falling short on putting all these things together but are making the effort to do it.”