The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The Central Andros Chamber of Commerce’s president says the island would welcome an increase in farmers with the eco-tourism industry it heavily depends on shuttered due to COVID-19.

Tavares Thompson told Tribune Business: “As it stands now it is just the essential businesses that are open. All of the lodges are closed down because Central Andros is eco-tourism. We depend something like 90 percent on eco-tourism, but with all of the lodges being closed it is just essential businesses that are surviving - the grocery stores and the lumber yards, and then a portion of the residents that are out there assisting the fishermen and the farmers.”

Voicing optimism that central Andros will escape permanent business closures once the pandemic has passed, Mr Thompson said: “No. Not Androsians. Androsians are persons that are going to bounce back. I think most persons are going to bounce back after this. I just think it’s going to take a lot of time.”

He backed the government’s drive to encourage more domestic food production and farming, especially given Andros’s excess farm land. Mr Thompson said: “I’m looking at my chickens right now. I’m actually a chicken farmer and doing chickens right now. That would be great, actually, I believe in The Bahamas being self-sufficient as a country.

“The first thing I believe as a husband or as a man you should be able to feed your family, and you should be able to do so as a country. The more the better. You can drive the food costs down and, at the end of the day, if you have an event like this again at least we would be able to sustain ourselves from a food position until the battle is over.

“So I’m behind it 100 percent once it is sustainable to the land, and once it doesn’t do too much irreparable damage. Androsians are going to come back after this, but just like everybody else we are impacted and we just have to hunker down until it is all over.”