Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Indar Weir.
The decision to institute a 24-hour curfew in the country to help reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus is impacting several sectors including agriculture, but Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Indar Weir said his ministry is working to ensure that there is minimal disruption in respect of food production.
Speaking to The Barbados Advocate, Minister Weir indicated that his ministry has sought exemptions for a number of players in the industry to keep the wheels turning in the agricultural sector through the next two weeks, while the country is on lockdown. He said that while farms can operate between 5 a.m. and 5 p.m. daily, there are some operations, like the poultry industry, that may require personnel to be out between the hours of 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. when they are expected to be at home. As such, he said representation was made on their behalf for emergency passes to be issued to them.
“...They have a hatching component to the entire structure and clearly if they are hatching birds, those birds would have to be carefully looked after. So whilst most of the industry is mechanised and there is a lot of technology that drives the industry, they have alarm systems they may have to respond to. During the curfew hours we have been able to set up what is called an emergency exemption for those persons who would have to respond. There are not a lot of people, one or two persons in each instance, and it is not an everyday occurrence,” he stated.
Curfew will not adversely impact farmers
The Minister insisted that the farmers will also not be impacted adversely in terms of being able to plant and being able to get supplies such as feed, fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides. According to Weir, they were able to identify those suppliers and grant them exemptions as well to be able to provide required inputs for the sector, during the period that Government is asking people to stay off the streets.
The agriculture minister added that all other farming activity, with the exemption of sugar, will fall under the hours that have been allocated for farming. In respect of the non-sugar agriculture, in particular the cash crops like vegetables, he said production continues to be ramped up. Weir noted that cultivation is taking place and Barbadians can expect to see more being done as we move forward.
His comments came as he made it clear that these efforts are not specific to COVID-19, and potential harm it could cause in respect of food imports, but is part of a wider effort to boost agricultural production.
“As the tourism industry rebounds we have to make sure we are in a position to give consistency of supply of primary agricultural produce so that we would then start to target things that we import, to replace them.
For example, there is one establishment that can produce most of the lettuce that we consume in the varieties, with the exemption maybe of iceberg lettuce, the one we import still. We don’t necessarily have to import that, we can simply use the varieties that we have here. This is the kind of targeted approach we are taking as we move forward,” the Minister insisted.
The Minister added that with the country also self-sufficient in sweet potatoes, there is also no need to import that commodity. He made the point while suggesting that Barbadian farmers could possibly increase the varieties of sweet potatoes currently being planted, noting that there are about 100 varieties of the crop, and we have not tapped into all. (JRT)