Let's Grow Bahamas
There is a voice
message floating around by a farmer whose animals were destroyed by pit-bull
dogs. When I first heard this message, I felt badly for this farmer, I felt her
pain and I am hopeful that the Ministry of Agriculture offers her the help she
needs to recover. I think the farmers
need more support not only from Government, but the entire community. Unfortunately,
many did not empathise or sympathise with her, they just chucked her statement
up to a rant, but she suffered a serious loss and a serious setback. She invested time and resources into the
development of her farm, and when you spend effort into producing something and
it’s lost, it hurts and she like many farmers need our support.
Farmers are
very important to our national development because we live in a nation that
spends 1 billion dollars on food imports accounting for 90 percent of the food
we consume (Hands for Hunger). We are
almost entirely reliant on food imports to feed our people, imports that become
very expensive after transportation fees, taxes etc. are added. These expenses are passed on to the consumer
who struggles with the high cost; needless to say many cannot afford nutritious
foods like fruits, vegetables and lean cuts of meat. Consequently, nutrition suffers because
consumers must focus on buying what they can afford rather than the nutritional
value of what they eat. This is a
contributing factor to the high rates of obesity, and diseases such as cancer, hypertension
and diabetes. Another serious concern is
that one in six Bahamians suffer from chronic hunger (Hands for Hunger), but think
of all the food that can be readily available and at a cheaper cost if more food
was grown and produced locally. Think of
all the healthy food families can eat if they grew some food themselves,
simultaneously reducing their grocery bill and freeing up some of the family’s
income to go on other needs. I know that
the government had a backyard farming project, which is a very good idea, but
we need to strengthen this programme because we need to encourage people to
grow and produce more food. It needs to be a national effort until it’s
culturally inculcated; it is good for our health, it is good for families and
good for the nation.
What is
interesting is in a press release by Prime Minister Hubert Minnis dated the 17th
March, 2020, he stated that, “there is no need to panic, we have at least 3
months of food supply on the island and shipping continues”. I agree, we do not need to panic, but we need
to be keenly aware and shift our focus on preparing our nation to be more
self-reliant and prepared to provide our most basic needs. We do not wish it, but let’s imagine a
scenario in which we are unable to get shipments of food from America or
elsewhere, we would be in a crisis. Look
at what is going on, we are experiencing a global pandemic that is reaping
havoc on the world’s economies. This
caught the world off guard and it showed how fragile commerce is, how important
it is to be able to withstand external shocks. Consequently, we need to increase the amount
of food we are able to produce, we need to support our farmers, and we need to
put real support behind this industry so that we can achieve appreciable
returns. Critics to this philosophy may
say that it is unattainable, but to continue our current food import bill is
unsustainable and unwise. We need to
grow and produce more food and the key to this is farmers like this lady. Farmers who are literally crying for help and
have a genuine interest in the progress of this nation rather than profit, let’s
support them because their success is our success.