The agriculture sector is in shambles, says former Chief Agriculture Officer Lennox Chandler.
In a recent interview with the Weekend Nation, Chandler painted a dismal picture of the industry, with acres of arable land overrun by bush, a lack of food processing facilities, a lack of enabling administrative policies favouring local food promotion and poor planning.
He said the situation would improve only if the emphasis shifted from food security to food sovereignty.
“Government has created a Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, which is good on paper, but a place like Barbados needs to go beyond food security; we need to talk about food sovereignty.
“It means we are in charge of our own food, how it is produced, what it is treated with, how it is priced and how it is processed and it makes us stand in a position where we are able to feed ourselves within the four corners of Barbados in the event of any catastrophic thing like COVID-19,” he said. (SB)
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