By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

An agriculture entrepreneur yesterday urged multiple government ministries to slash the bureaucratic processes that are “frustrating” farmers and impeding a “time sensitive” industry.

Caron Shepherd, president of the newly-formed Bahamas Agro Entrepreneurs Group, told Tribune Business she was constantly pushing the Ministry of Agriculture to reform a circuitous approval process that farmers must endure when importing the likes of seeds, raw materials and production equipment that are vital to growing crops and livestock.

With COVID-19 having reawakened food security and sustainability discussions in The Bahamas, she argued that unnecessary red tape was stifling the ability of domestic producers to make further inroads into their 8 percent share of the country’s food needs.

“I try to get people to understand how time sensitive food is,” Ms Shepherd said. “You cannot plant a seed today and wait for 90 days down the road for it to sprout. Everything grown rotationally is time sensitive.

“I’m trying to get people at the Ministry of Agriculture to understand how time sensitive these matters are. You have to write to the Ministry of Agriculture to get permission to import certain items. They then have to write to the Ministry of Finance to approve those items, which takes two weeks.

“Two weeks is not a long time for a person sitting behind a desk, but for a farmer that is a long time. What I am saying to the Government is that we need to have a ‘farmer’s card’ attached to, and for use at, Customs.”

Such a card, which could only be used by registered farmers identified as genuine industry participants, would be employed to facilitate the importation of raw materials and equipment without having to go through the current red tape and delays caused by dealing with multiple ministries.

“They’re already in the system, and would be able to say they are a registered farmer who has been farming for five, ten, 15 years and need to bring in these items,” Ms Shepherd explained of how the card would function.

“You do not have to write to the Ministry of Agriculture and then go to the Ministry of Finance because it is going to sit on one person’s desk. We farmers are frustrated by having to write to the Ministry of Agriculture, write to the Ministry of Finance for approval, and wait for it to be sent back.”

Calling for farmers’ raw materials and production equipment to be made VAT-free, Ms Shepherd told this newspaper: “I have mentioned the need to invest at least $100m in bringing agriculture to the point where it will be sustainable and improve our development.

“Once we’re able to inject at least $100m into agriculture, that gives us a jump start to produce quite an array of produce so we can move to the next level. It allows us to purchase raw seeds, what we need to hire people and let people be hired.”

She added, though, that this financing was not reliant on a hand-out or subvention from the Government. “I’m not saying we need all this from the Government,” Ms Shepherd said. “We have persons out there interested in investing in the farmers. There’s a lot of talk on the table that has not yet materialised.”

Declining to fully disclose her financing plans, she indicated one option could be an initial public offering (IPO) type raise involving the Bahamian public. “The $100m, we know how we’re going to raise that,” Ms Shepherd said. “We don’t need the Government to give us $100m, we just need all the red tape to be cut out for us to do what we need to do.

“We know how we’re going to do that. We want to be able to bring it to the public. We don’t want large investors. We want to be able to go to the small man and let the small man participate in the growth of agriculture development. We don’t want someone to come in with $100m. We want people to participate, and be participants in the industry.”