The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

A BAHAMIAN farmer is questioning whether enclosed agricultural projects, such as Eeden Farms’ $60m Gladstone Road joint venture, can thrive due to this nation’s hot climate.

Natasha Adderley, owner/ operator of Bahama Island Farms, told Tribune Business that, while she was not criticising the partnership with US-based 80 Acres Farms, she was sceptical that such a vertical farming model could succeed in The Bahamas’ environment.

“I’ve done some research with that, and I said with the vertical farming, while it does work, the question is: What infrastructure will they be putting it in?” she asked. Ms Adderley said farms with enclosed features such as greenhouses have to “plan for certain times of the year”.

She added: “So, that’s the first thing. Now, the other issue at hand is hydroponics, because hydroponics also has issues when we’re trying to engender an environment right now where people are concerned about their health and eating organically, and avoiding hydroponics because it is not organic.

“With hydroponics you have to use chemicals to get the plants to grow in water, whereas when you put them in soil, the soil out acts as a buffer. What hydroponics is, it is intensive farming. What that means is that, in one context, disease is more likely, and if one crop catches disease the whole system is at risk of catching disease.”

Ms Adderley called for more investment in crop protection versus cultivation techniques because “a lot of crops spoil in inadequate storage facilities in the country, even before they get to market”.

She added: “Now I don’t know how their $60m is going to be split up, but it should be split in a way where they concentrate on crops coming out of the ground in the winter, which is very easy and very cheap, and then put some of the money into preserving our product. That has been our problem, preserving our produce.”

Lance Pinder, Abaco Big Bird Poultry’s operations manager, added: “The Government seems like they are going to make a serious go at agriculture this time. There are a lot of challenges, but it’s not impossible to overcome.”

He now sits on the board of the Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Science Institute (BAMSI), where he had the opportunity to meet with Clay Sweeting, minister for agriculture, marine resources and Family Island affairs, and feels the Government is taking the right approach to agriculture.

“I don’t see a problem with the Eeden Farms partnership,” Mr Pinder said. “You need funding from somewhere. But I have to tell you now the food situation is getting scary.

“I know what I’m dealing with as a chicken farm, and finding supplies and stuff, and the cost of everything, it’s been really bad over the past six months. You would think that it would get better but then you have the deterioration and then, with inflation and everything, it is making things worse.”

Mr Pinder said: “The new partnership is going to have challenges with duty-free stuff and permits that are going to take some time, and then there is a lot of technical haze they have to be able to work around; the same thing that we encounter when we try to do business in the country.

“Then you have to be able to sell the product at the end of the day. That’s the big thing. You can grow a lot but you have to be able to sell your goods at the end of the day.”