Compromise to secure food

In an era where food security is paramount, there has to be a compromise in how land is used in this island.

Making it clear that competition will always exist between agriculture, housing and tourism for land, representative of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) in Barbados, Ena Harvey, nevertheless emphasised that citizens must get back to the days of rearing livestock and growing vegetables and fruits.

Noting that one of the major issues with raising farm animals in residential areas was that of the smell affecting neighbours, she highlighted that there were ways to get around such a problem.

“There are technologies that can reduce odours on the farm and we have to apply these technologies so that we can have the farm in close proximity co-existing because the geography of Barbados is such that we do not have mountains and rivers and other clear demarcations between what is rural and what is not rural and therefore we have to find some type of compromise,” Harvey stressed.

Pointing out that a lot of the land along the coast and some of the traditional land inland has been taken up for tourism by villas and golf courses, she said that the cost of such land was now out of the reach of those who wanted to do farming.

She nevertheless emphasised that this issue had to be addressed in light of the fact that the country had to look at ways of feeding itself.

“There are innovations and technologies that could allow for reduced odours and for reduced bio-effects on housing communities, because we have to think of our food security and our children have to know that chickens don’t come from off of the supermarket shelf,” she added. (JMB)