Having traditionally looked to tourism as the island’s major money earner for decades, Barbados is beginning to advocate greater reliance be placed on agriculture both as an economic resource and as a provider of jobs.
Earlier this month, agriculture expert and Managing Director of Produce Growers Ltd, Keeley Holder, told a lunchtime lecture that agriculture has the potential to help address the growing problem of youth unemployment on the island. More than that Holder is of the view that with what she described as the dispiriting performance of tourism and international business, continued reliance on these sectors alone leaves the Barbadian economy in a condition of vulnerability.
“While the technological age has ushered in with it new types of jobs, it is becoming evident on a global scale that there are fewer jobs than existed 20 or 30 years ago. In a time when youth unemployment has become the biggest developmental challenge in almost every country in the world, agriculture in the 21st century provides the opportunity for the creation of quality jobs. With an ongoing recession, threatening to become a depression, agriculture in the 21st century can stimulate business and drive growth,” Holder said.
Barbados is one of several Caribbean territories that has had to face rising food import bills associated with the need to cater to the tastes of tourists. In 2010, a regional food import bill exceeding US$3 billion forced regional heads of government to focus on the need for the Caribbean to place greater emphasis on both placing greater emphasis on shoring up agriculture at the country level and embarking on joint initiatives designed to engender enhanced food security in the region.
In the approximately two years since high level regional initiatives have been taken to encourage more investments in agriculture food import costs have risen even more and in her lecture, Holder conceded that the time had come for agriculture to play a greater role in the Barbadian economy. “It is not as cost effective as it once was to import food.
The price of agriculture products has become more expensive and the global demand for food is expected to remain high in the subsequent years. As a result, this sustained demand presents an opportunity for local investors and entrepreneurs,” Holder said.
