NEXT WEEKEND Barbados will stage its annual national agricultural exhibition, branded Agrofest 2015, showcasing the best of what the island’s farmers and agro-processors have to offer.
More importantly, as has been the case with previous exhibitions, it will present the perfect opportunity for the farming community to demonstrate to our youth and others looking for employment or to supplement their income the very encouraging prospects for those who are prepared to invest the effort.
Barbados’ agricultural sector has served its population quite well for centuries, slavery notwithstanding, and when we measure our success in industry, tourism, education or health we cannot overlook the part played by agriculture and its practitioners.
We have come a long way from the days when the fork and hoe were the primary implements of farming, and today we employ a lot more science and intellect, from land preparation all the way to post- harvesting processes.
At the same time, however, we have failed miserably in addressing some of the most glaring symbols of failure in our agriculture portfolio. High on that list must be the clear neglect of our vendors, who perhaps better than any group in our society over the years have demonstrated how one generation can build on the successes of the pervious to ensure a steady path of upward mobility.
Today, however, when we see vendors operating in the rodent-infested collection of unsightly shacks called the “outdoor vendors market” at Cheapside, or the garbage-covered rusted shell of what used to be the Fairchild Street Public Market, our failures in this area become even clearer.
And if we add to that the fact that after nearly a quarter century we are still unable to do anything with the Eagle Hall Public Market to encourage even a single vendor to consistently maintain a tray there, the only emotion that should be provoked is shame.
Another glaring example of the way we have failed our agricultural community is in the area of praedial larceny. In fact, there is hardly another challenge about which our farmers have screamed louder for decades, yet no Government has been able to implement a regime of measures to bring about meaningful improvement.
We are now at the stage were thieves take as easily from the small farmer as they do from the estate operation. They dig, they cut, they pull – depending on the type of produce – with impunity, and cart away from the little lamb to the full grown beef cattle like nobody’s business.
We are certain that the authorities must accept, like us, that the quantities stolen these days can’t be for household use. What we are seeing is theft on a commercial scale by persons who must have a ready market of dishonest wholesalers and/or retailers who would have us believe they are honest, legitimate business people.
Perhaps Agrofest this year will also serve to sensitise the tens of thousands of visitors to Queen’s Park to the challenges our farming community faces.
Our vendors, our farmers and so many of the other players in the sector have done too much to build this country over the centuries to be treated this way in our supposedly modern Barbados.
