The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

Food health and safety regulators have enjoyed some success in “weeding out” imported produce that may be harmful to Bahamians, a Cabinet minister has asserted.

Michael Pintard, minister of agriculture and marine resources, told the Grand Bahama Business Outlook conference that one particular rice brand - which he did not name - had to be “pulled off the shelves” after government testers detected “an element” that should not be present.

Responding to concerns about the so-called “dumping” of poor quality, cut-price food products in The Bahamas, the minister responded: “We’ve heard it before. One of the challenges we have had historically is not having an agency that had the wherewithal to do testing - whether it was on plants, animals or processed foods.

“That has changed over the years. Are we there? Not quite. Are we in position to evaluate foods coming into the country? Yes. With rice brands, one had a higher residue level of an element that should not be in the rice or should be there in smaller quantities. As a result of that process, the importer had to pull it off the shelves. There are efforts to weed out what is potentially harmful to the market.”

Mr Pintard also acknowledged that US poultry distributors, when dealing with excess supply, had traditionally sought to off-load chicken parts in The Bahamas at prices that under-cut local producers. However, he promised that the government will seek to prohibit such imports as part of its renewed post-COVID food security and sovereignty drive.

With the government implementing a policy that hotels, restaurants and major food stores source 40 percent of their needs locally, and that public agencies dedicate 75 cents of every $1 spent on food and drink to in-country purchases, Mr Pintard added: “When we ramp up production we are prepared to prohibit those items coming in from outside.”

Noting that his ministry has received permission from Cabinet to privatise the animal feed mill, because it is not meeting farmers’ needs, he said: “There are different elements along the value chain that have not been fixed, and one by one, sometimes two by two, we are fixing these things to grow the sector.”

As for fisheries, Mr Pintard said there were opportunities to generate export revenue through the sale of whole lobsters - not just the tail - to consumers in China and Asian markets.

Noting that one New Providence seafood processor has already been given permission to do this, he added: “There are parts of the lobster that we don’t consume which generate revenue. There are additional products that can be created from lobsters that are not huge in this market.”

Mr Pintard said the government had also spent $1m on land clearance initiatives throughout The Bahamas as a way to soften COVID-19’s impact, and as part of a wider “emergency food programme” undertaken in his ministry. “We did clearing as well as ripping and, in some cases, we did more,” he added.

“In addition, we focused on areas where we thought there was opportunity for significant penetration in the market. We recognise as a result of studies that layer birds, that is broilers, as well as the production of eggs provided us with an opportunity to cut into a substantial food import bill as it relates to broiler meat as well as eggs.

“So we began the distribution of layer birds and, to date, we have distributed well over 12,000 of those birds, free of charge, to farmers to allow them to begin to operate labour operations or to augment already existing programmes,” Mr Pintard continued.

“The goal, in short, was food security, making sure we had access to the right amount of food and the right types of food, and food sovereignty, making sure that we weren’t put in a position that we were exclusively reliant on persons from overseas but that we ourselves were producing what we consume.”

Having worked with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and other international agencies, Mr Pintard said his ministry has obtained the necessary data to analyse the agricultural sector more effectively.

He said: “We also worked closely with the IDB, who assisted us with consultants who played a pivotal role in helping us to gather badly needed data. And, of course, it was as a result of that particular IDB study that we were able to identify 77 of the thousands of food items that we consume.

“Seventy-seven items - from fresh fruits and vegetables and ornamentals, whether it’s proteins, or whether it’s beef, pork, small ruminants or poultry. We recognised that in these areas, that is the 77 items, we have the ability to produce products that will allow us to be competitive in the international market in terms of pricing, quality, and sustainability.”

As a result of identifying these 77 items, Mr Pintard said The Bahamas has the ability to make significant inroads into its $1bn annual food import bill by raising domestic production.

He added: “We can save, over the course of the next three to four years, a minimum of $200m on our food bill. But again, with collaboration, with the required resources, the right quality decisions, we can do much better than $200m saving.

“So one step was to conduct import studies. We believe that it is absolutely critical for us to make evidence-based decisions... for farmers not to produce on the basis of what they’re good at, traditionally, but to produce what the market is, in fact, demanding.”