By YOURI KEMP

Government agencies have allocated some $200,000 to hep stimulate the creation of a cascarilla industry in the southern Bahamas using the co-operative model.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Marine Resources (MAMR) has teamed with agencies including the Bahamas Development Bank (BDB), the Bahamas Agricultural and Marine Science Institute (BAMSI), Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI) and the Bahamas Environment, Science & Technology (BEST) Commission to revive the industry on Acklins, Crooked Island and Cat Island.

“The cascarilla bark is a key ingredient in the popular aperitif, Campari. The bark is currently exported to Italy, the United Kingdom, France, the United States of America and Germany. The oil is very valuable and used in manufacturing perfumes and medicines, and the export potential and value is tremendous for this plant,” said CARDI country representative, Dr Michelle Singh.

Carlton Bowleg, parliamentary secretary in the ministry, said: “The MAMR, Bahamas Agricultural and Industrial Corporation (BAIC), the Department of Forestry, Department of Cooperative Development, BAMSI, BEST Commission, the Inter-American Institute of for Cooperation in Agriculture (IICA) and CARDI, in a collaborative effort, will be embarking on a week-long trip to Acklins to continue the cascarilla industrialisation project.

“The key programme objective is to increase exports of bark and oil through the development of a sustainable cascarilla industry. This will be enabled by the organised propagation of the plant; facilitation of at least two commercially viable cascarilla oil processing facilities; and the creation of at least five new ancillary businesses.

“A team will be travelling to Acklins for the period of November 20-30 to, first, prepare a pilot-scale extraction facility for potential commercial production that will be conducted by two chemists from the University of the West Indies (UWI). Secondly, to establish a nursery for the cascarilla plantation where CARDI and BAMSI will be the facilitators, and thirdly to train the new Acklins island Cooperative Board.”

Dave Smith, the Development Bank’s managing director, said he found the cascarilla industrialisation programme “in full flux” when he joined the BDB in August 2018. He credited Garnel Pelecanos and Justin Stirrup for doing “a lot of the initial heavy lift in terms of executing specifically designed programmes” to aid underserved communities in Acklins, Crooked Island and Samana Cay.

Asked by Tribune Business how much investment will be required, Mr Smith said: “We are in the preliminary stages, and the cost at this particular point is not significant. It would be less than $20,000 to get this going and then, depending on the results of that, we will determine the level of funding. Also, once the business plan is put together in terms of how fast we want to move, that will drive the cost.”

After these preliminary works are done, Mr Smith added: “In terms of the cost of the manufacturing equipment, that is not as significant as the economic benefit. So, if the initial system is less than $20,000 and that has to be procured, I imagine that it would not be more than $200,000.

“I think through the development of the co-operative arrangement it will provide an excellent opportunity for persons to be engaged. We have to do a lot of other work to get persons involved, but once they see the work being done more persons will get involved.”

This new initiative coincides with an existing programme being executed through the Department of Forestry and the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

Danielle Culmer, an official with the department, said: “The project correlates well with an international project we had from the GEF. This is a United Nations Development Programme-funded project that was titled the ‘Pine Islands - forest and mangrove innovation and integration’ project.

“We had a component that dealt with sustainable livelihoods and looked at our cascarilla resource in Acklins, Crooked island, Samana Cays as well as Plana Cays. Then, when we heard that the BDB was doing the same thing we had already done, we decided to partner.

“The GEF project has been extended until 2021. The funding for this component totals just under $500,000, but funding-in-kind totals some $800,000 with the various agencies including the Forestry Unit, CARDI, BAIC and BAMSI.”