Agriculture Minister Dr Shantal Munro-Knight is placing those importers who are bringing produce which could be grown here on notice.
“We are having a challenge where we see the agricultural sector is working to increase its production, and we are still having, what I would say, in some respects, unnecessary imports. I want to put the private sector on guard. We are watching,” she said.
The minister, who was speaking this morning at the annual general meeting of the Barbados Agricultural Society at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, said it annoyed her to see large quantities of items such as pork, sugar and onions coming in when Barbados could produce enough locally.
She said they had already engaged the Ministry of Energy, Business Development and Commerce to show Barbados could produce the required cuts of pork locally.
“I want all of the numbers in terms of our production for every single item under that pork heading. Again, so that we can demonstrate that we have the capacity. And then somebody is going to have to help me explain to everybody what it is that we will still justify the level of imports that we have. We are watching,” she said.
Munro-Knight said they had taken the issue of unnecessary sugar imports to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade while the Ministry of Agriculture had invested in an onion dryer to boost local production. However, she said there was a need for better data.
“We cannot replace everything with local production. We cannot, and let’s be realistic about that. What I’m saying is unnecessary, is where we have imports that are coming into the island for products that we can produce at scale here in Barbados.
“But, again, you know what difficulty that we had in making that case? Data. If we don’t have the data coming from the sectoral groups, then we cannot make the case that we need to. We need your help,” she said, adding they were also working with the tourism industry to get more local products used by hotels. (CA)