The Tribune

A regional agriculture body has teamed with the Agricultural Development Organisation (ADO) of The Bahamas to promote the industry’s sustainable development in this nation.

The Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) is partnering with the Bahamian group in a long-term effort to increase agriculture’s contribution to the country’s social and economic growth.

The two sides have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to formalise their relationship and outline a number of objectives for collaboration. ADO executive chairman, Philip Smith, and IICA representative in The Bahamas, Mari Dunleavy, signed the agreement.

The Americas agency for agriculture will provide technical co-operation, innovation and knowledge to help the competitive and sustainable development of agriculture in The Bahamas along with ADO, a non-governmental body dedicated to developing solutions to food insecurity.

Through this agreement, the IICA reaffirms its ‘Accelerating Vision 25 by 2025’, the campaign launched in 2018 by Caribbean countries to reduce food imports by 25 percent by 2025. Despite the issues generated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Caribbean region has begun making progress towards achieving that goal.

Ms Dunleavy said: “IICA Bahamas is honoured to enter into this agreement with ADO, and we look forward to developing initiatives together that support agricultural development and education in The Bahamas. A few of the projects we plan to join forces on quickly are fostering additional community and school gardens, enhancing them with curricula, and re-launching our ‘Buy local, buy fresh, buy Bahamian campaign’.”

This campaign is based on the premise that consuming food produced in The Bahamas will alleviate heavy spending on imports, create jobs, stimulate the economy and improve the social situation.

Mr Smith added: “That’s just the beginning of a long journey that will both let us reconnect with our roots of growing our own, building self-sufficiency and take us forward, helping farmers develop sustainable methods with efficient supply chain management through innovation and technology.

“ADO is excited to partner with IICA and enlist this multilateral organisation to [improve] our existing projects and develop additional alliances with international donors.”