A CALL is being made for greater support for backyard, urban and community gardening.
It was made by Lecturer in Biometrics in the Faculty of Food and Agriculture at The University of the West Indies (The UWI), St. Augustine Campus, Dr. Lystra Fletcher-Paul, who was one of the featured presenters during a webinar hosted by the FFA entitled “COVID-19: A Wake-Up Call for Regional Food & Nutrition Security”.
The lecturer believes that there should also be greater support for local farming and fisheries, the latter of which is a good source of protein.
During her passionate presentation, Dr. Fletcher-Paul suggested that farmers’ organisations form clusters. “Because there is strength in unity and by working together as organisations and in clusters, they get better prices for their inputs, for their produce and they can also purchase in bulk and buy the inputs at a cheaper price.”
She said efforts must also be made to build capacity in agro-processing to extend the shelf life of the food and to improve the capacity to increase productivity and competitiveness.
It was suggested that in the medium- to long-term, investments must be made in information systems, “such as land information systems, which tell us where our land, which is best suited for agriculture, is situated; what is the best crops that it is suitable for; what are the best enterprises that we should put our land to use for. Water information systems, which would tell us about the available water and the quality water.”
She stressed that more young people must be encouraged to join the sector. “We are finding that young people are not interested in studying agriculture, so there is no succession planning. The young people who are there to take over are no longer there.”
As it relates to sustainability, she said resilient agri-food systems must be implemented, giving the example of drought-resistant and salt-tolerant varieties and substituting inputs where possible.
She said there must also be incentives in the sector. “In the same way that we give tax incentives to our hotels to come and invest in our countries, linked to those tax incentives should be a clause that a certain percentage of the food that you serve in your hotels and restaurants must come from local farmers.”
The lecturer said behavioural change will also be critical to move the sector forward. “It has been about 30 years that I have been in this sector and these recommendations are not new, but for some reason we continue to do things the same old way and even after things settle down with COVID-19, are we going to go back to our old ways?” she queried.
“Maybe we need to look at what it is that is going to contribute or change the behaviour of our decision-makers, so that they can put more money into agriculture for our consumers, so that they can eat more of our local food,” she opined. (JH)