By NICO SCAVELLA

MINISTER of Agriculture V Alfred Gray said yesterday he is confident that the Bahamas Agricultural and Marine Sciences Institute (BAMSI) will open as planned and “will not fail” despite construction delays and “other factors which go against it being completed on time”.

While spearheading a tour of BAMSI’s site in North Andros yesterday, Mr Gray said a “paradigm shift in the policies of the government” is perfect assurance for the completion of the institute, which is set to begin classes on September 29.

A contractor for the site told The Tribune that construction is not expected to end until December or even January.

“No less a person than the prime minister has taken this project as his baby so to speak,” Mr Gray said.

“If the minister of finance and prime minister (are) the same person this will not fail, because the government of the Bahamas has pledged to put $100 million to ensure this project succeeds, and I don’t doubt for a moment that it is happening or that it will happen. We’ve spent almost $50 million already and we’ve just begun. So those who would like to see it fail tell them keep on looking, keep on watching, because things don’t stop once movement starts.

“As the school expands, the number of students will expand and grow as well. I see BAMSI as a part of the University of the Bahamas to be, and is presently connected with the College of the Bahamas, the University of Miami, all of those (institutions) have had an input in the curriculum that is being administered beginning September 29.

“So let the naysayers go into the darkness for a while and let the light shine on this college. Give the college an opportunity to grow and let the Bahamian people see and be the judge.”

Mr Gray led a contingent of several government officials, BAMSI officials and media on a tour of the BAMSI site in North Andros yesterday, beginning at the Protected Agriculture and Greenhouse Department and ending at BAMSI’s commercial farm and main campus.

Farming

According to Constentina Hamilton, BAMSI’s assistant manager, the greenhouse department is the “nursery area” of the site where the various seeds and seedlings are kept and propagated before being sent off to the commercial farm. It also houses a germplasm bank, which deals with “plant genetics.”

The commercial farm spans 800 acres; it consists of 22 acres of banana trees and 15 acres of papaya. The farm also has a livestock area with a current stock of 31 animals, mainly sheep and goats. Omer Thomas, BAMSI project co-ordinator, said although the banana trees are just in their first year of cultivation, he expects that 1.5 million pounds of bananas will be harvested by 2016.

Additionally, the two varieties of papaya currently being grown at the commercial farm, beginning in December, will amount to 120,000 boxes of papaya being produced, or 1.2 million pounds.

“That 1.5 million (bananas) represents only 25 per cent of what we import, and this would be about $1.5 million per year,” Mr Thomas said. “We’re expecting, through our outreach programme, having other farmers growing bananas to the extent where we will have on Andros nearly 75 acres, at which time it will be about 60 per cent of the banana requirement for the Bahamas. We import $4.5 million worth of bananas per year, and this year and its outreach programme will satisfy 60 per cent of that after year three. Based on the size that we have, it allows us to produce at a price lower than what we are now importing it at.”

He added that there also will be a real potential to export these bananas.

“With regards to papaya, the statistics show that we are importing somewhere in the region of $1 million worth of papaya per year, coming from as far as Costa Rica, Guatemala and some in Mexico,” he said. “These varieties that we are growing here are the same varieties that they grow there and are exporting here. We are expecting that from the production of this farm we will not only have the fresh fruits that you see in the supermarkets, but we’ll be using the non-marketable quality to make papaya chunks, papaya puree, and papaya laggard. These are value added snack items that we intend to do in our processing facilities at the institute.”

Mr Thomas said BAMSI officials plan to introduce 15 acres of avocado, 15 acres of lime and 10 acres of coconuts in hopes of beginning a coconut water industry on the campus. He also said that varieties of guava will be established to provide “raw material” for their processing facility, allowing for the production of “jams, jelly and nectars.”

BAMSI officials also believe that the livestock breeding programme will provide good quality stock that will contribute to the reduction of importation of meat in the country.

However, despite the lush and promising greenery the site boasts, it still has considerable progress to make for it to be considered completed. With less than three weeks until the beginning of classes, no building on campus is finished, and both the commercial farm as well as the greenhouse department showed signs of incompletion.

According to Livingston Forbes, chief architect for the Ministry of Public Works, the “major buildings” are 65-70 per cent complete and workers are now in the process of “installing windows and doors.”

“We’re turning the corner in terms of the finishing stretch,” he said. “We’re trying to finish everything what we have on the ground now simultaneously because all are integrated. The dormitories, the classrooms, the administration buildings, the cafeteria, the faculty houses, which are basically finished – the eight houses are finished and we have four other faculty one-bedroom villas which are about 70-85 per cent finished.

“We have some married student one-bedroom villas which are about 85 per cent finished. We are trying to finish all of these phases simultaneously and hopefully in another two months or so we should have these buildings just about done and there are some buildings that are to come that will complete the first phase of construction.

“I would give it another two and a half months or so and these buildings should be finished. By November or December we should be ready. I think by January these buildings should be able to accommodate the school quite comfortably.”

Road work

In addition to the incomplete infrastructure, the road leading from the airport to BAMSI’s site is porous with pot holes. The road is also prone to flooding, something which Mr Gray said is a “concern to the government.”

“The prime minister has announced that once the deputy prime minister returns and I think he is coming back from his 10-day trip he is going to sign contracts, and I’ll be surprised if the contracts are not signed this week, beginning (yesterday),” he said. “Perhaps before the end of the week, the contracts for the rehabilitation of the roads leading from the airport to school, and in fact all of the roads in North Andros. So this is a big project. I’m told it will engage some five or six contractors, some at one end, some at the other end, and they work to meet in the middle so that the time for the construction would be shortened.

“The roads may not be ready for the 29th. I’m told that the roads will take about six weeks to be completed, but we will certainly hope that the roads between the airport and the school should be, if not completed, passable, so that the headache (you) have would be a thing of the past.”

Last week the Union of Tertiary Teachers of the Bahamas hit out against the relationship between the College of the Bahamas and BAMSI, calling it a “charade” and suggesting that BAMSI was using COB to legitimise its academic programme.

Opposition leader Dr Hubert Minnis also criticised the government for failure to meet its proposed deadline for the opening of the institute.

Mr Gray responded by saying the union was “in no position” to determine whether BAMSI is a part of COB or not. And, he said, Dr Minnis would “be disappointed” upon BAMSI’s projected September 29 opening.