By ANNELIA NIXON

Tribune Business Reporter

anixon@tribunemedia.net

Roker’s Gas Station is partnering with Nu Gaia Farms through its Feed Ya Self initiative in a bid to highlight what is produced by Bahamian farmers and other small businesses.

Noting that the initiative is now in its third week, Peter Roker, the station’s principal, confirmed it will be held indefinitely every Saturday from 8am through 4 pm in the open area of his new location on Faith Avenue. While targeted mainly at farmers and food processors, he said other small businesses are invited to take part in the Feed Ya Self Initiative.

“When we came down here to do the service station and the lumber company, what we wanted to do is to make the area more accommodating for entrepreneurs... and also to bring to light the people who are doing farming, backyard farming, citrus, herbs and also, there’s a tremendous amount of people doing different types of programmes for sauces, spices, juices - all very indigenous, organic and very, very natural,” Mr Roker said.

“There are a lot of Bahamian small farmers out there. And so what we’re trying to do as a business is highlight that, and give them a forum where they can come there every Saturday and it’ll rotate. In other words, it won’t always be the same people. Just to give you an example, this last week we had a company down there that does dog training.

“[It is] especially [for] farmers and persons who are producing homemade juices, jams, spices, your edible crafts, edible crops and to spotlight them. Even if they don’t attend. In other words, they can bring the brochures. There’s no charge for the brochures. They can go and interact with our customers on the pumps, and give them samples,” Mr Roker said.

“So it’s all about exposing what a lot of Bahamians are doing. You take, for instance, I bought a dozen eggs, totally organic eggs for $8-  totally organic fresh eggs. And the other thing, too, is the eggs were all different colours by different hens. You have really specialised types of products that you really can’t buy in the food store.”

Mr Roker said his hope is that restaurants and hotels will take notice of Bahamian farmers and support such enterprises by purchasing their products, noting that they are freshly grown while organic provides a healthier alternative. 

“We don’t have a problem with people coming in and helping farmers and Bahamians,” Mr Roker added. “But what we would like to see happen is some of the hotels and restaurants connect with these people and buy their product, because it’s a real high quality product and would be a very important addition to any good restaurant.

“And we want to connect people to people. So someone’s using eggs, and they want the organic eggs. We want to be the ones to connect them, or we want to help them to be connected to other people. Like I said before, there’s no charge at all whatsoever. So it’s not a commercial thing. This is more for Roker’s Gas Station and Nu Gaia farms farms to make our contributions.

“I think that the public must be sensitised to how many people are out there growing and producing very, very good food. There’s no question at all about the need for the best food possible for people, because there is, as you know, so many types of sickness going around and eating natural is probably one of the safest things.”

Mr Roker said when he first thought of the Feed Ya Self initiative, he reached out to farmers and Nu Gaia Farms provided “the more positive” response. 

“I met the people from Nu Gaia Farms about a month ago, through the farmers WhatsApp chat group. I had sent something out to the farmers, and they were the ones who responded. And that’s when we met each other. They’re a very young couple that is extremely knowledgeable,” Mr Roker said.

“I had planned the event. As a matter of fact, I had put the the idea across to all the farmers on the chat group. And they’re the ones who responded, I guess, the more positive way. They do have a programme for kids to be interested in that as well. We encourage children to come by and see what we’re doing, and be a part of the learning process.”

To become a vendor, interested parties should WhatsApp 805-4242 or Mr Roker at 424-0749.