Image extracted from Facebook, BU apologizes if anyone finds it offensive
Successive Barbados governments in the last twenty have shown little appetite to develop a vibrant agriculture sector. There is now a resignation by all but a few that the way services go so too the economic fortune of Barbados. The Barbados Labour Party’s (BLP) chief spokesman on economic matters Clyde Mascoll is on record dismissing any significant investment by his government in the sector, reason being the high cost of inputs. The commonsense view that investing in a homegrown agriculture sector has more to do with addressing food security seems to be lost on policymakers. Of course there is the other reason which has to do with protecting our right to grow food which is not genetically modified and at the same time align with the positive message that healthy lifestyle is a worthwhile endeavor.
This government has uttered the correct messages regarding the need to etch an agriculture policy. However after four years there is not much one can honestly agree has been accomplished. There is the news making the rounds that the government currently has several acres of land under fruit cultivation. The project is expected to supply local demand. Up to the time of posting this blog BU was unable to identify the location. The reality is that members of government reflect the values of the society which produced them.
Barbadians have bought into the values of others where to cook a meal is today considered an irrelevant activity. We have become slaves to the taste of food because it is fashionable to do so. The fact that ingesting the food is known to do irreparable harm to the body is of little consequence. It hardly matters to many Barbadians that eating and drinking food sourced at the many fast food outlets is doing our bodies irreparable harm. Stake out any Return Bottle Depot at a local supermarket and see the car trunk loads of pep-bottles which are returned by the minute. We have also become slaves to convenience. We have time to go to the movie theater and enjoy other forms of entertainment, gossip on the telephone – both mobile and landlines, text away all day on the ubiquitous Blackberry, iPhone, iPad etc but little time for the important stuff. How many busy Barbadians would give-up ONE hour to visit a plantation to buy ground provisions and vegetables saving themselves dollars and protecting their health in the process? How many would pack a daily lunch bag instead of forking out $15-$20 to KFC and Chefette? Has anyone noticed that Chefette Restaurant is one of few businesses flourishing in the current recession?
Rosemary Parkinson, Kammie Holder and others continue against the odds to educate Barbadians about the likely repercussion of eating genetically modified foods manufactured by Monsanto and others. The news that consumers elsewhere felt concerned enough to mobilize against Monsato did not even make it on local media radar.
The saying that there much information circulating but little knowledge is as true as John 3:16. What will it take to address the everest like challenge of planning and executing a relevant agriculture policy in Barbados? What will it take to change the attitudes and behaviours of Barbadians to improve the quality of what we eat? Why should Carmeta Fraser have lived her live in vain?
@Bruddah Bim – yes I have been reading all the comments. I have a book to get to the designers before I lose my chance of getting that completed….that I do not comment at every posting does not mean that I am not aware. If I do not take time to work, I can earn no money and I will not be able to eat, and then issues of food and electricity might not be pushed like how I push them…’cause I cannot encourage blogs from 6′ under….so gee me a break!! There is so much I can do.
Food in Barbados and the Caribbean has my top priority….then comes Barbados Light & Power (who I waiting for this month ’cause I been living in darkness and wannah see what dem coming up with now!).
But to be honest, I tired of all the talk…I still say bottom line is – a petition to stop the importation of Monsanto’s products and all GMO foods…this is the most important start to getting our island clean…our health bill down. Educate our children (and the older ones) about same and how to eat clean. @BU and David….why not start this petition…I think it would be amazing if it started here. I will personally deliver such a petition, with anyone else who wants to join, to the government of Barbados.
Re farming: There is enough land. There are enough farmers. We could do with more of both of course, and there are lands with which to do it. Bring in the Guyanese if the Bajans do not want to toil same. Right now that is about as much as I can fight for.
We have thousands of others who can take action….many just like to sit and read these blogs, and write nonsense and insult each other just because they have nothing better to do. Those who write about good planning and what should be done are noted with interest….but…..do you go out there and implement what you preach? In fact is it not you Sir Brudda with all the ideas that lives in the US….if you can solve our problems, please come back and join forces of action. Or keep on writing to the government, keep on writing in the media, keep up the fight through words…I have been doing this for twenty odd years….because we do not get an answer does not mean we have to stop. Our islands are known for using the telephone for idle chat, the blogs for cussing, the mail for receiving same and putting into a draw for posterity. Action is not one of our pluses….but the time will come….so just keep on doing what you are doing from afar if you cannot come home and do it.
I believe in what I preach. And take as much action as I can. My action right now is to shop at the local markets for my produce and my beef, talk to farmers and encourage them to stop using Monsanto, I do not eat GMO foods (even stopped using flour, use cassava flour instead – does the exact same work as normal flour and is bettah for ya and it is home-grown and made here), I do not purchase anything to do with food from the US, encourage others to do the same, even stop people in the supermarket when I do go there and ask them to read the labels of foreign and put it back on the shelves (one day I might get thrown out of these!). I try to eat as much clean local as I can, encourage restaurants to grow their own herbs and to shop in the local markets – in fact tomorrow I have one restaurant owner and her chef going with me for the first time to Cheapside market..(I have done this over and over again…sad when I take the time to actually take Chefs and introduce them to the market vendors…they shop there once and then because of pure laziness, soon go back to calling the expensive importers and return to their bad habits (much easier). In fact I am shocked at how many Bajan Chefs have never been to a market!! In the US and in in Europe Chefs go to the market themselves, choosing their produce with care….so since we follow everything foreign does how come we don’t follow this littl exercise??? LAZINESS. DRINKING TOO MUCH RUM AND PARTYING AFTER A NIGHT OF SERVING PEOPLE, CANNOT GET UP IN DE MAWNING AND DO DE RIGHT TING?????? or what????
… but me…I do not give up…I still continue to encourage and try my best to show the way. In fact this particular restaurant owner I am taking to Cheapside, she is a foreigner, and has made up her mind to increase her food section (used to be more of a bar type operation) but do it conscientiously as she has seen the light about clean, good food…. will be also doing a little growing in her yard at home and more at the restaurant too….so my work is on the ground…my work is every time I leave my house. I get my satisfaction from hearing a friend telling others not to buy this or that and encouraging them to buy local. I get satisfaction from action.
I will not get involved in politricks. I will not get involved in calling people names. Or wasting my precious time. I am doing the work through my writing and photography also, through my presentations (did not one Abaco screaming about Monsanto and our lack of respect for farmers – a child of 10 asked me for all the photographs and the presentation so she could speak to her entire school the same way and I gladly gave same – showed me children do want to know and are concerned). If I cannot get the attention of those who can make a difference, I continue to try, but mostly I go out there and do as much as I can by educating those who are not aware of the simplest of things – like throwing a plastic bottle into a bush (got cussed for telling a 30-something year old who did this in front of me the other day but perhaps nexx time she might think about it a little more…as I warned her she was killing her children…..man!).
So if I do not get involved with every comment made it is because I am in fact out there doing in the immortal words of Bajan Brian Talma – “Action, man!”
What are all of you who have placed your ideas and comments on this blog doing today to make a difference?
@Rosemary
Your idea is a good one conceptually about the petition. However the issue which is a potential blocker is the reality that only 1 out of 5000 Bajans has ever heard about Monsanto.
@David…..I think that you are wrong…..but…who knows….I knew nothing about the development at Chancery Lane until I saw it on Facebook and signed the petition…that got stopped (well for now!)….I think you could try it…if you only get me signing it will be a show for me to nevah bother again…live my life the way I want….help those who want to be helped…and let cancer reign, and death continue….but I have a feeling we will get quite a few people….from all over the Caribbean too….Perhaps when I am finished with this Barbados book, I can do this myself but right now my brain cannot take too much…it is already addled with these pages…!!! 10,000 photographs, 600 stories – this major league work and I am inundated and fighting a virus at the same time…
@Rosemary
Will work on something tomorrow.
The following petition was created.
BU urges all who read this comment to follow the link and sign the petition to ban genetically modified foods from entering Barbados.
https://www.change.org/petitions/the-government-of-barbados-ban-the-importation-of-genetically-modified-foods-gmo-into-barbados
google “pink slime” or chicken nuggets ingredients.
Wunna Bajans doan know how fortunate you are to be able to grow food all year.
I just signed the petition. Why haven’t any of you?
balance | February 9, 2012 at 6:40 AM |
You truly understand Bajans.
Brudah-Bim you need a white Canadian front man to present your proposal.
I just sent a letter to the People’s Empowerment Party (a lesser known Political party) via Facebook and posted comments on their page (also via Facebook), which at the topic of the topics was the nation’s current state of agriculture and need for self sufficiency. It is an appeal to them in order to help spread awareness amongst the Bajan people. Hopefully it will encourage them to gear up and become the leading hedges of the mobilization of the people.
I wouldn’t blink though, because it is still not enough to make even the slightest dent.
Singing is easy and free.go ahead make a difference
you probably do not read my comments miller but we seem to be singing the same tune. reinventing the agricultural sector as aviable alternative to the other food competitors would take a lifetime because those who have authority over the purse strings like fast foods too. miller the agricultural sector in cuba has never recovered since the demise of the soviet bloc because 40% of cuba’s food and 805 of its fertilizers and pesticides were imported from thesoviet bloc and the collapse of that trade 1991 caused real problems.. in 1993, the first BASIC UNITS OF COOPERATIVE PRODUCTION were created to grow more food for the population but 705 of these COOPERATIVES have been unprofitable and unsuccesful due to interference in their operations by the CENTRAL GOVERNMENT.
Random Thoughts | February 6, 2012 at 9:41 PM |
David maybe betwen you are Rosemary could start a recipes thread using all local foods. Simple dishes which take less than an hour to prepare. I think that people like to eat local fresh food, but they imagine that it is difficult or expensive to prepare.
Maybe you can show them that it is neither time consuming
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Or perhaps CBC Radio & TV could sacrifice some of the time it airs Days of Our Lives, et al ,and Stupid Cupid to teach our folk what you have suggested,instead of teaching them the crap that emanates from these shows