• ‘Cannot spoon feed’ sector with ‘token’ Budget rise

• Co-op chief calls for ‘giant steps’ on food security

• Otherwise just ‘spinning the same wheel slowly’

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Government is being urged to “take the bull by the horns” and facilitate the $100m investment required to revive a Bahamian agricultural sector that is “40 years behind” where this country requires it to be.

Caron Shepherd, president of the newly-formed Bahamas Agro Entrepreneurs Group, told Tribune Business that the Government “cannot spoon feed” agriculture with “token” Budget funding increases that merely “pet and pamper” the industry if it is serious about boosting Bahamian food security and sovereignty.

The Prime Minister, his Cabinet ministers and governing party MPs have repeatedly used the 2022-2023 Budget debate to talk up the administration’s increased financial allocations to farmers, and their ambition to cut this nation’s annual $1bn food import bill against the backdrop of soaring prices and growing insecurity sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

However, Ms Shepherd argued that “giant steps” are needed for The Bahamas to achieve this goal, and the “tiny steps” provided in the 2022-2023 Budget will “not make a serious dent” in the country’s billion dollar reliance on foreign food imports.

While not advocating that the entire $100m come from the Bahamian taxpayer, given the Government’s obvious fiscal constraints, she nevertheless argued that substantially more investment than what is provided for in the Budget is needed to “harness agriculture and make it work for us”.

The Government yesterday unveiled a $3m partnership with an Israeli firm to develop farming “cultivation centres” in New Providence and Eleuthera, and Ms Shepherd agreed that its Budget talk - together with the increased “food security” funding for the Ministry of Agriculture, Marine Resources and Family Island Affairs and its agencies in the 2022-2023 Budget - provides “light at the end of the tunnel for some farmers”.

She added: “Speaking about the statement of intent by the Prime Minister, and heavy emphasis on food security and sustainability in this year’s Budget, based on the analysis and numbers that were run for agriculture since 2019, we appreciate the Prime Minister making these tiny steps.

“However, we need to make giant steps in regard to agriculture. As it is, in 2022 heading into the 2023 growing season, the Budget is really not reflecting a significant step in food security and sustainability. And the reason for that it is, if we are dealing with $1bn in food imports, the $3.5m-$4.5m that’s allocated in the Budget [for food security] is only a tiny step on the route we need to take with respect to making a substantial step.

“Therefore, this Budget does not seriously reflect a significant dent in our agriculture sector. We are practically 40 years behind in agriculture right now, and when I say that, a few years ago we were exporters of certain crops and, today, we are not exporting the volume that, 40 years later, we should be exporting at this present time,” Ms Shepherd continued. 

“As a result, I don’t think within this year’s Budget we will see any significant dent in the imports that are coming into the country. In agriculture, it [the Prime Minister’s comments] gives us a little encouragement. It gives us a little bit of encouragement. However, is it going to seriously put a dent in our agriculture sector? It’s really not. It’s just a drop in the bucket. It’s not reflecting what needs to be done in the agriculture sector.

“We’re hoping that it reaches the farmers who have been aggressively farming and not some new-sayers who are just coming on to the block and seeing an opportunity for them to hop on the bandwagon. I would hope this seriously touches the farmers in the industry and provides a light at the end of the tunnel for some.”

The 2022-2023 Budget shows a 31 percent increase in the Ministry of Agriculture, Marine Resources and Family Island Affairs’ “food security” budget on the recurrent side, with the near-$1.5m rise taking this from $4.69m to $6.149m in the upcoming fiscal period.

That sum is projected to increase slightly over the following two fiscal years, hitting $6.2m in 2023-2024 and $6.3m in 2024-2025. However, just $221,782 of the $4.69m allocation for the current 2021-2022 fiscal year had been spent in the nine months to end-March this year.

And, while a further $1m has also been provided for “food security” in the Ministry of Agriculture, Marine Resources and Family Island Affairs’ capital budget for 2022-2023, this represents a year-over-year reduction of almost two-thirds compared to the $2.985m allocated for the same purpose in 2021-2022. Of that latter figure, some $1.468m had been spent in the nine months to end-March 2022.

The Davis administration has also held subsidies for the Bahamas Agricultural and Industrial Corporation (BAIC) constant with 2021-2022 levels at $5m - an allocation that will be repeated in the two subsequent fiscal years through to end-June 2025. Funding for the Bahamas Agricultural and Marine Science Institute (BAMSI) is also being kept relatively flat for 2022-2023 at $6.476m, and is another line item expected to change little moving forward.

Given the fiscal realities, the Davis administration also appears to be focusing on attracting private capital to help underwrite agriculture’s revival as shown by yesterday’s $3m Israeli partnership. But, asked whether the increased Budget financing for agriculture is sufficient to accomplish the Government’s objectives, Ms Shepherd replied: “No, no, no. This does not.

“This increase in the funding will not in any which way be sufficient to accomplish what the Government intends to do, and this is a token that is being handed out to a few farmers who are in the industry and maybe some new persons coming on the block. This definitely does not reflect significant intentional growth for agriculture.

“Here it is. We’ve been agitating for the farmers to get assistance. Fine. We’ve already expressed what the farming industry needs to be able to have a significant and productive increase. I know people laugh at me when I say we need $100m, but if we are 40 years behind in the agricultural sector, in order for us to move from one stage to another you cannot spoon feed the agriculture sector and expect it to produce what you want it to produce,” Ms Shepherd argued.

“It’s just not going to work. We have to take the bull by the horns, and decide in our minds that we’re going to put serious funding behind the sector so that we can propel it to where we’d like it to go. We will need to be able to support ourselves, and if we do not put the work in now, years down the road we’re going to be in the same situation that we are in now.”

Without the necessary investment, Ms Shepherd said The Bahamas will be “still spinning the same wheel that is not moving; that is moving extremely slow in the direction we would like it to go. We need to make it so that we are able to harness this industry, and have it work for us, and not pet it on the side and pamper it on the side. We need to harness it and make it work for us”.

Suggesting that The Bahamas sometimes did not obtain the best-quality food via its import dependency, which was consuming ever-increasing quantities of foreign exchange to purchase, Ms Shepherd said, with the surge in global prices also resulting in the payment of higher taxes.

“The Government seriously needs to take the bull by the horns and harness this industry, develop it and cultivate it into what it needs to be,” she reiterated, “and that is a sector that is developing, advancing and increasing food production. We need at least $100m injected into the agriculture sector to be able to advance some of the goals that we need to accomplish.”

An aging farmer population; costs and challenges associated with getting produce to market between islands; consistency of price and supply; security of land tenure; inability of small producers to obtain economies of scale and compete with importers; and The Bahamas’ climate and vulnerability to hurricanes are just some of the factors impacting the agriculture sector.

Leroy Major, BAIC’s executive chairman, in his contribution to the House of Assembly debate described the Budget as a “farmers” budget as “more money [has] been allocated to farmers in this Budget than any other Budget previously. More incentives [are] given to farmers in this Budget than any other Budget”.

Acknowledging that the Government is appealing to farmers and depending on them to help to “feed the nation, bring down the cost of living and help to reduce the country’s food import bills”, Mr Major added: “Like many other nations, The Bahamas today is challenged to deal with the intensifying reality – how to supply Bahamians with food at affordable prices while ensuring that farmers earn minimum level of profitability.

“The rising cost of energy is having a multiplier effect on the cost of products like fertilizer and services throughout the agri-food chain. The good news that the Prime Minister has announced is that the Government has increased the funding related to food security and will provide farmers with direct support ‘because growing a greater share of our own food will dampen the impact of inflation and provide economic benefits and opportunities’.”

Mr Major said the $1.5m increase in the Ministry’s recurrent “food security” budget will finance greenhouses and other smart technology for food production on the Family Islands, plus training for farmers in the use of modern technology.

“Farmers will be further supported by the allocation of some $500,000 to secure broilers, and $600,000 for livestock to increase the supply of fresh meats in the market,” he said.