Farming in the Bahamas

Question #4
Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen. My name is Darren Seymour. I am a farmer and was asked to speak at this career fair on some initiatives the government offers to assist and encourage more Bahamians to consider farming as a career.
I would take a few minutes to speak generally about farming before telling you about those initiatives.

A study of farming in The Bahamas shows that farming has not maintained a steady growth over the years. There was once a large dairy and poultry farm at Hatchet Bay Eleuthera that provided milk, eggs, and ice-cream for Eleuthera and New Providence. Many persons were employed in Eleuthera and Nassau because of this and it was good for the economy. Those farms have closed now for many years.
At Abaco there were two large farms that provided tons of cucumbers and oranges for export to the United States. They are no longer in operation.
A large poultry farm at Gladstone Road in New Providence which provided lots of chicken recently went out of business and many workers lost their jobs.
The population of The Bahamas is now approximately 350,000 and continues to grow. Approximately 5,000,000 tourists visit The Bahamas annually, and this is also increasing.
With an economy in recession and an increasing population to feed the development of farming in the Bahamas will help the economy by providing jobs and income for Bahamians, food for our residents and visitors and a reduction in the amount of money we now spend to buy food from other countries.

A Bahamian Farmer is one of the most resilient business persons in The Bahamas. He works in an atmosphere where he is threatened each year by hurricanes. On the local market, foreign foodstuffs are preferred over his own; some imports are duty free, insurance is either too expensive or unavailable, they face high work permit fees for immigrant farm labor along with high costs of inputs, and the prices which he is paid for his output are not on par with inflation. Yet he continues to work the land, rear his livestock, and support his family.

1) Crop and Livestock Production

In earlier years farmers were producing a wide range of vegetables, fruits, and livestock such as sheep, goat, and pigs. Small farmers in the Out Islands shipped their fruits and vegetables to The Nassau Market through the Produce Exchange. Sheep and goats were the primary livestock species in the Out Islands by the traditional farming community. Pigs were essentially a small farmer activity in New Providence where abattoir facilities were available along with a market for fresh pork. Poultry and beef were orientated toward commercial enterprises. There was a poultry association and between the broiler and layer population production was approaching 1,000 tons of dressed meat and 12 million eggs. Beef production was carried out by The Bahamas Livestock Company in Eleuthera where in 1963 the herd exceeded 700 impressive Aberdeen Angus. The Aberdeen Angus also crossed with Charollais.A small portion of this beef was made available on the local market.

Types of Farming in the Bahamas

1) Pothole Farming

Pothole Farming is perhaps the oldest system of farming in The Bahamas. It is a system which began with the Arawak Bahamians and has been passed on and perfected by 20th century Bahamian farmers. It has been very successful and is based until the recent introduction of commercial fertilizers and pesticides on what is called the “art of farming.”

2) Large-Scale Farming

The Loyalists, unknowingly, chose the Coppice Islands with the least agricultural production potential according to Land Resource Study. The amount of high-quality land on those islands was lower than the amount under cotton production. It was not until the late 19th century that the more fertile pine islands began to produce export crops.

A problem for the earlier settlers was the difficulty of clearing the fire resistant pine forest, which only became possible with the use of machinery in the 20th century.
Around the 1880’s sisal emerged as an important crop with export potential. This industry survived for almost 40 years and created jobs and generated a fair amount of foreign exchange.

There is a high demand for food products in The Bahamas; these include meat, poultry, and farm produce most of which are imported. It is estimated that the imported food cost The Bahamas approximately one billion dollars per annum. Most of this food can be produced locally, but it requires more people to engage in farming on a larger scale. This would require training in modern techniques such as farm irrigation, green house farming, animal husbandry, agricultural science, and the introduction of machinery for land clearing and farm preparation. Farming can be a very lucrative business and there is enormous potential for farmers to earn a lot of money by producing food for local consumption and export. This can be seen from the document “The Bahamas Top Thirty Crops” prepared by Mr. Leslie Minns for the Bahamas Agricultural Producers Association.
This document lists many crops that can develop into over one million dollar businesses each. Some of these crops are carrots, sweet pepper, lemon, oranges, plantain, grapefruit, limes, watermelon, corn, banana, cantaloupe, broccoli, and many others.

Government Initiatives

To encourage development in farming in The Bahamas the government offers some initiatives to Farmers such as:

1) The lease of government land for farming purposes where necessary.

2) Government grants duty-free concessions to farmers who wish to import any material, equipment, machinery, trucks, farm supplies including seeds and fertilizers.

3) Assistance to farmers for land clearing. For example a farmer who hires a tractor to clear land for his farm would be reimbursed fifty percent of the cost if funds were available.

4) The government established Packing Houses on all major islands where farming is done and purchase up to nine thousand dollars worth of produce from each farmer annually. This produce is shipped to the Government Produce Exchange at Potter’s Cay Dock for sale to the residents of New Providence.

I wish to thank you for your attention and hope that you now have a better appreciation of the vast benefits that can be gained from farming by us as individuals and as a nation.

Thank you very much