The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Almost 90 per cent of Bahamian farmers are effectively ‘disenfranchised’ because they do not own the land they use, a senior agricultural expert yesterday calling for a strategic plan to develop the industry rather than 
“the regular ad-hoc approach”.

Dr Keith Campbell, the Bahamas Agricultural Producers Association’s (BAPA) president, told Tribune Business that developing a sustainable agricultural industry in this nation would diversify the economy away from being “a one trick pony”, reliant largely on tourism.

Calling for a focused, comprehensive plan that totally worked the Bahamas’ existing agricultural model, Dr Campbell added that this nation’s trade policy - and negotiations on issues such as World Trade Organisation (WTO) membership needed to “level the playing field” for local farmers.

And he questioned whether agriculture minister, V Alfred Gray, his advisers and Ministry of Agriculture officials, fully understood what they were trying to do and the policies that would bring effective results.

Noting that Mr Gray earlier this year lambasted poultry importers and wholesalers, Dr Campbell said the minister was focusing on the “high hanging fruit”.

The BAPA president instead suggested that the minister, and the Government, concentrate on the ‘low hanging fruit’, which could include the development of a salt industry in the southeastern Bahamas.

BAPA’s own strategy paper on the way forward for the Bahamian agricultural industry, which has been seen by Tribune Business, identifies multiple challenges facing the sector that must be addressed.

A big impediment, the paper said, was land, given that “almost 90 per cent of our farmers do not own the land upon which they farm and the majority of them lease Crown Land”.

Their status as tenants, BAPA argued, meant they were unable to use their land as collateral/security for bank loans, impeding access to capital. Instead, many Bahamian farmers had to risk their personal equity to obtain financing, and they had no right to recoup the value they had added to the land- or transfer it to their heirs - when the lease expired.

Elsewhere, BAPA added that the $9,000 annual cap on what each farmer could sell to the Government-owned packing houses had pushed many to downsize or exit the industry altogether.

Calling for a renewed focus on co-operative societies, where farmers could combine their resources and seek financing from the likes of credit unions, BAPA said it was “imperative” that the Government’s trade policies support the competitiveness, and development, of Bahamian agriculture.

Explaining BAPA’s focus, Dr Campbell told Tribune Business: “We need a strategic plan as opposed to the regular, old ad-hoc approach. Members and associates have been calling me up, voicing their concerns at the present approach.”

Recalling Mr Gray’s previous announcement that he had $1 million ready to hand to Bahamian farmers for use in advancing their businesses, Dr Campbell said this was all well and good.

But he suggested this needed to be issued as part of a developed strategy for furthering the industry, or farmers needed to present their own detailed plans as to what the capital would be used for.

Urging that farmers be seen, and treated, as entrepreneurs in their own right, Dr Campbell said: “What we need to do is cater to the development of farmers as small and medium-sized entrepreneurs.

“By definition, an entrepreneur is someone who could undertakes a business, puts in capital, accepts the risk and takes the initiative.

“That’s what required in the agricultural sector. We need to engage that spirit, and level the playing field.”

Noting the ongoing negotiations for full Bahamian membership of the WTO, Dr Campbell said the Bahamas’ trade policies needed to ensure local producers could compete - and survive - in a sustainable manner.

He suggested, though, that the former Ingraham administration had failed to sufficiently protect Bahamian farmers, having reduced the tariffs on fruit and associated products to zero. Vegetable tariffs were also reduced.

“In terms of the WTO, the approach is to put tariffs as high as you can and work them down. You have to put your marker down right where you are and go forward,” Dr Campbell said.

Noting Mr Gray’s focus on the poultry industry, the BAPA president described this as “high hanging fruit” in terms of taking the sector forward in the short-term.

“The salt industry is the low hanging fruit,” Dr Campbell told Tribune Business. “Establish it as a micro and small and medium-sized enterprise industry in the south-eastern Bahamas. There’s no good reason why we import salt into this country.”

Noting that 14,000 products were derived from salt, Dr Campbell said a sustainable sector could be created, with salt collected from inshore water and processed via evaporation. It would also build on Bahamian history, and provide a product that could be used in culinary tourism.

Suggesting that increasing agriculture’s share of Bahamian GDP from the current 2 per cent to 5 per cent was a reasonable initial target, Dr Campbell said some process for making leased farmland “bankable” needed to be devised.

“If you go and squat on Crown Land for seven years you can demand title. But, as a farmer, if I use collateral from elsewhere to develop it, and have been on it for years, I have no rights to that land,” he told Tribune Business.

The BAPA paper added: “Marketing continues to be a major challenge for persons in the agricultural sector.

“Since the imposition of the $9,000 cap on annual purchases of produce from farmers by the packing houses some two decades ago, a good number of producers have either gone out of business or else have downsized their production to subsistence (backyard) level.”

It continued: “Access to input supplies and micro-credit are two other challenges.

“We recommend a plan of action for the revitalisation of the cooperative society movement as a means of overcoming these challenges. We also recommend the implementation of a market information management system in order to facilitate crop forecasting and related activities.”

Describing the Bahamian economy as “a one trick pony”, Dr Campbell said this nation would have been better able to withstand the recession if it was “more diversified and structurally balanced” through industries such as agriculture.

Acknowledging the difficulties in attracting young Bahamians into the industry, Dr Campbell told Tribune Business: “They have to see role models.

“They have to see people out there, making a living doing it. The people who are presently involved have to do something for them. We have to organise the sector to provide not only jobs but entrepreneurial opportunities. We’ve got a whole lot of work to do, and it can’t be an ad-hoc approach.”