by Larry Smith
Opening the newspaper this week I was confronted with a huge load of BS.
American food store operator Sandy Schaefer (who closed his loss-making Robin Hood outlet on Harrold Road just a year ago), is now on a mission to re-open in the same location under a new name.
That in itself would be curious enough, but there's more. Schaeffer says his new store will be able to cut food prices by 20 to 60 per cent, due to his new purchasing contacts in the US combined with "vertical control" of his supply chain.
What does the latter mean? Well, Schaeffer is pursuing a $1.5 billion agricultural development on Andros, that he says will make the Bahamas self-sufficient in an entire range of foodstuffs, including meat. The project will supposedly generate $2 billion in revenue and employ some 10,000 people.
This is reminiscent of a 2008 proposal by developer Tony Joudi to grow corn on hundreds of thousands of acres throughout the Bahamas. He wanted to clear our remaining forests so we could make ethanol to run our sport utility vehicles on our over-congested roads.
And you may recall the proposal three years ago to hand over 5,000 acres of prime land on Abaco to the Chinese to grow vegetables, fruit and livestock while operating a cannery, processing plant and abattoir. A Chinese team actually visited the site back then, but nothing has come of it so far.
A few years earlier, someone suggested a cock-eyed scheme to grow rice in the brackish mangrove wetlands of Andros. And believe it or not, that idea has recently resurfaced - along with Cuban experts said to be working with the government to set up another farming school in the Big Yard.
“Agriculture can be the basis for the economic sustainability of many of our Family Island communities,” says Godfrey Eneas, a former agriculture director who is now a Bahamas Agricultural and Industrial Corporation consultant. “As a result of that, people will not have to migrate to New Providence because we can create jobs within these communities.”
Sounds good, doesn't it? Only it has never worked out that way.
In his book Agriculture in the Bahamas (a second edition of which is now being published), Eneas cites statistics showing a fall in the tiny percentage of the work force that is employed in agriculture - from 4.4 per cent in 1970 to 4 per cent in 2011. And most of those workers would be - you guessed it - Haitian migrants.
In spite of this, Eneas, along with current BAIC chief Arnold Forbes, former BAIC chief Edison Key and many, many others continue to insist that our economic future and cultural identity can only be assured if we take steps to produce more of the $500 million of foodstuffs we import every year.
And for anyone who remembers the "good old days" when granny and pa harvested fresh fruit and vegetables in their backyard, it is tempting to believe that these glowing projections can be achieved.
In fact, these calls for agricultural development have been made for as long as I can remember. As an official speechwriter at the Bahamas News Bureau in the 1970s and 80s, I wrote about linkages between agriculture and tourism so often it became boilerplate - something to be inserted at the appropriate point in every text.
So how accurate is all this? Are we really missing out on a massive economic bonanza?
Well, Andros is usually cited as the "breadbasket" of the Bahamas - the Big Yard, the continent to the west, the island with the greatest potential for farming. In fact, as mentioned earlier, the BAIC is now talking about setting up a farming school on Andros.
The proposed location is where the country's first agriculture school was located - on 2,000 acres of virgin land near San Andros. In 1973 this project was heralded as "the capstone of Bahamian agricultural self-sufficiency", and funded by a $10 million grant from the United States.
Two American universities provided technical support and the brightest young Bahamian technocrats were enlisted to help run the project - including former cabinet minister Earl Deveaux, who is a trained agronomist.
Back then the Bahamas Agricultural Research, Training and Development Centre had a herd of 300 Santa Gertrudis cattle from Texas, and a flock of 600 sheep to improve the country's breeding stock. The project included a 500-acre research farm, 16 model farms of up to 80 acres each, credit facilities, marketing support, and training programmes. Among the crops researched were soybeans, corn and sorghum as well as citrus, avocadoes and mangoes.
Initially, the Centre provided all the inputs and guaranteed incomes, after which farmers were given a long-term land lease and credit facilities with local banks. A co-operative was formed to acquire machinery and crops were marketed through the government packing house. A training facility with a modern library was also on site.
But by the late 1980s - after the Americans left - the project had dwindled to nothing. Horses and livestock were left to starve, and expensive equipment discarded to rust. The machine shop, training centre and other central facilities were abandoned. And government officials, including then agriculture minister Perry Christie, sought to cover up the failure.
The supreme irony is that according to a 2011 economic impact study, the impact of agriculture on Andros today is no more than $1.23 million annually - or about 1 per cent of the overall economic impact from all activities on the island. In fact, farming had the lowest revenue-per-person-employed out of all activities on the island.
In other words, we can earn more from crabs than crops.
"From our work, it is clear that 60 per cent of the Androsian economy is linked directly to the island's natural resources - which is astonishing," said Dr Venetia Hargreaves-Allen of Imperial College, London. "The long-term impact of depleting these resources will affect everyone's livelihood, so their future security needs to be addressed by protecting forests, reefs, creeks, crabs and bonefish."
So what is the current reality of farming in the Bahamas?
Agricultural production accounts for less than 2 per cent of the Bahamian economy, despite the fact that some 37,000 acres of cleared land has been earmarked for low-cost agricultural leases of up to 41 years - mostly on Andros, Abaco and Grand Bahama.
About a quarter of this land has been leased to farmers, but according to a 2009 government audit even those leases are mostly not in production.
The value of local crop production in 2007 was about $42 million, of which only a fraction was exported (mostly citrus). Meanwhile, imports of vegetables and fruit were valued at $46.4 million. Livestock production - poultry, pork, sheep and goats for local consumption - was valued at less than $20 million in 2007.
The Department of Agriculture receives over $7 million in the government's budget. This money goes to support a backyard farming programme, road and well construction for farmers, loan guarantees, and the provision of fertilizer, pesticides, packaging materials, livestock feed, fencing and technical services. Farmers are also subsidized by duty exemptions on supplies and equipment.
For the benefit of farmers, the Department operates the abbatoir, the Gladstone Road Agricultural Centre, the Produce Exchange, seven packing houses on four islands, a crop safety unit, and a plant propagation unit, as well as extension services. The BAIC is a related agency that supports agricultural production and marketing throughout the islands with a separate budget.
However, by the Ministry's own account, agricultural policies have had minimal impact. Economies of scale are difficult to achieve, and most farmers cannot produce enough, consistently enough, to sustain direct sales to wholesalers and retailers.
"Grading standards, storage facilities and a strong infrastructure for delivering products to market (are) monumental challenges", according to the Department's 2009 Agricultural Sector Plan.
Other issues include poor crop management, record-keeping, and technology; reliance on immigrant labour; lack of financing, and inadequate market knowledge. Labour costs of a measly $150 per week are considered expensive by most farmers, the Department says.
Agricultural processing faces similar problems, as well as food safety and standardisation issues, and high energy and insurance costs.
In other words, despite decades of government support, commercial agriculture in the Bahamas is a difficult and uncompetitive enterprise that few Bahamians are interested in pursuing. And without Haitian labour, the sector would collapse overnight.
Clearly, food self-sufficiency for the Bahamas is an illusion. Bahamian conditions are simply not conducive to commercial agriculture. Pineapple fields for example, had to remain fallow for 15 to 20 years after producing only a few crops, and the industry was never large enough to justify a regular steamship run ((as the banana trade did in the West Indies and Central America).
Bahamian soils are dry, thin and patchy - making them suitable only for traditional shifting cultivation or pothole farming, experts say. Mechanised agriculture is restricted by frequent outcrops of bare rock. Water resources are scarce, and crops require heavy irrigation.
To pursue commercial farming the ground must be specially prepared by heavy machinery at great cost, and large amounts of chemical inputs are required, which can and do pollute the water table.
More to the point, food security is an illusion because the necessary inputs for commercial farming themselves must be imported - fertilizer, pesticides, fungicides, herbicides. Suppose the boat with the fertiliser stops coming? Or the plane with the seeds? Or the ship with the tractor and pump on board?"
Other countries in the region (like Mexico or the Dominican Republic) can produce vastly cheaper product than we can. And government guarantees and purchases act only as a disincentive to efficient producers. Import restrictions limit consumer choice and result in higher food prices.
Sounds good, doesn't it? Only it has never worked out that way.
In his book Agriculture in the Bahamas (a second edition of which is now being published), Eneas cites statistics showing a fall in the tiny percentage of the work force that is employed in agriculture - from 4.4 per cent in 1970 to 4 per cent in 2011. And most of those workers would be - you guessed it - Haitian migrants.
In spite of this, Eneas, along with current BAIC chief Arnold Forbes, former BAIC chief Edison Key and many, many others continue to insist that our economic future and cultural identity can only be assured if we take steps to produce more of the $500 million of foodstuffs we import every year.
And for anyone who remembers the "good old days" when granny and pa harvested fresh fruit and vegetables in their backyard, it is tempting to believe that these glowing projections can be achieved.
In fact, these calls for agricultural development have been made for as long as I can remember. As an official speechwriter at the Bahamas News Bureau in the 1970s and 80s, I wrote about linkages between agriculture and tourism so often it became boilerplate - something to be inserted at the appropriate point in every text.
So how accurate is all this? Are we really missing out on a massive economic bonanza?
Well, Andros is usually cited as the "breadbasket" of the Bahamas - the Big Yard, the continent to the west, the island with the greatest potential for farming. In fact, as mentioned earlier, the BAIC is now talking about setting up a farming school on Andros.
The proposed location is where the country's first agriculture school was located - on 2,000 acres of virgin land near San Andros. In 1973 this project was heralded as "the capstone of Bahamian agricultural self-sufficiency", and funded by a $10 million grant from the United States.
Two American universities provided technical support and the brightest young Bahamian technocrats were enlisted to help run the project - including former cabinet minister Earl Deveaux, who is a trained agronomist.
Back then the Bahamas Agricultural Research, Training and Development Centre had a herd of 300 Santa Gertrudis cattle from Texas, and a flock of 600 sheep to improve the country's breeding stock. The project included a 500-acre research farm, 16 model farms of up to 80 acres each, credit facilities, marketing support, and training programmes. Among the crops researched were soybeans, corn and sorghum as well as citrus, avocadoes and mangoes.
Initially, the Centre provided all the inputs and guaranteed incomes, after which farmers were given a long-term land lease and credit facilities with local banks. A co-operative was formed to acquire machinery and crops were marketed through the government packing house. A training facility with a modern library was also on site.
But by the late 1980s - after the Americans left - the project had dwindled to nothing. Horses and livestock were left to starve, and expensive equipment discarded to rust. The machine shop, training centre and other central facilities were abandoned. And government officials, including then agriculture minister Perry Christie, sought to cover up the failure.
The supreme irony is that according to a 2011 economic impact study, the impact of agriculture on Andros today is no more than $1.23 million annually - or about 1 per cent of the overall economic impact from all activities on the island. In fact, farming had the lowest revenue-per-person-employed out of all activities on the island.
In other words, we can earn more from crabs than crops.
"From our work, it is clear that 60 per cent of the Androsian economy is linked directly to the island's natural resources - which is astonishing," said Dr Venetia Hargreaves-Allen of Imperial College, London. "The long-term impact of depleting these resources will affect everyone's livelihood, so their future security needs to be addressed by protecting forests, reefs, creeks, crabs and bonefish."
So what is the current reality of farming in the Bahamas?
Agricultural production accounts for less than 2 per cent of the Bahamian economy, despite the fact that some 37,000 acres of cleared land has been earmarked for low-cost agricultural leases of up to 41 years - mostly on Andros, Abaco and Grand Bahama.
About a quarter of this land has been leased to farmers, but according to a 2009 government audit even those leases are mostly not in production.
The value of local crop production in 2007 was about $42 million, of which only a fraction was exported (mostly citrus). Meanwhile, imports of vegetables and fruit were valued at $46.4 million. Livestock production - poultry, pork, sheep and goats for local consumption - was valued at less than $20 million in 2007.
The Department of Agriculture receives over $7 million in the government's budget. This money goes to support a backyard farming programme, road and well construction for farmers, loan guarantees, and the provision of fertilizer, pesticides, packaging materials, livestock feed, fencing and technical services. Farmers are also subsidized by duty exemptions on supplies and equipment.
For the benefit of farmers, the Department operates the abbatoir, the Gladstone Road Agricultural Centre, the Produce Exchange, seven packing houses on four islands, a crop safety unit, and a plant propagation unit, as well as extension services. The BAIC is a related agency that supports agricultural production and marketing throughout the islands with a separate budget.
However, by the Ministry's own account, agricultural policies have had minimal impact. Economies of scale are difficult to achieve, and most farmers cannot produce enough, consistently enough, to sustain direct sales to wholesalers and retailers.
"Grading standards, storage facilities and a strong infrastructure for delivering products to market (are) monumental challenges", according to the Department's 2009 Agricultural Sector Plan.
Other issues include poor crop management, record-keeping, and technology; reliance on immigrant labour; lack of financing, and inadequate market knowledge. Labour costs of a measly $150 per week are considered expensive by most farmers, the Department says.
Agricultural processing faces similar problems, as well as food safety and standardisation issues, and high energy and insurance costs.
In other words, despite decades of government support, commercial agriculture in the Bahamas is a difficult and uncompetitive enterprise that few Bahamians are interested in pursuing. And without Haitian labour, the sector would collapse overnight.
Clearly, food self-sufficiency for the Bahamas is an illusion. Bahamian conditions are simply not conducive to commercial agriculture. Pineapple fields for example, had to remain fallow for 15 to 20 years after producing only a few crops, and the industry was never large enough to justify a regular steamship run ((as the banana trade did in the West Indies and Central America).
Bahamian soils are dry, thin and patchy - making them suitable only for traditional shifting cultivation or pothole farming, experts say. Mechanised agriculture is restricted by frequent outcrops of bare rock. Water resources are scarce, and crops require heavy irrigation.
To pursue commercial farming the ground must be specially prepared by heavy machinery at great cost, and large amounts of chemical inputs are required, which can and do pollute the water table.
More to the point, food security is an illusion because the necessary inputs for commercial farming themselves must be imported - fertilizer, pesticides, fungicides, herbicides. Suppose the boat with the fertiliser stops coming? Or the plane with the seeds? Or the ship with the tractor and pump on board?"
Other countries in the region (like Mexico or the Dominican Republic) can produce vastly cheaper product than we can. And government guarantees and purchases act only as a disincentive to efficient producers. Import restrictions limit consumer choice and result in higher food prices.
Lucayan Tropical is a commercial farm that has been growing produce hydroponically for several years on New Providence. But last year General Manager Tim Hauber said he would be lucky to break even. The previous year was about the same. And before that, the company incurred "serious losses" trying to carve a niche for itself in providing fresh produce to food stores and restaurants.
"My perspective is it's almost impossible to make money in farming in this country, other than a few niche markets," Hauber said. "Those that can grow and sell directly to consumers might find a place. But once you go on a larger scale, it is very difficult to make money,"
So it is simply counterfactual to suggest that agriculture can provide the large-scale economic returns that the country requires to develop, although small farming operations focusing on tourism may work.
Two good examples of this are Goodfellow's Farm near the Lynden Pindling International Airport, and the three-year-old Freetown Farm on Gand Bahama. They practice a form of market gardening. Goodfellow's has a restaurant and farm shop to create a successful boutique destination. And the 20-acre Freetown Farm offers tours and horse riding, in addition to selling eggs, seasonal fruits and vegetables.
To me, the conclusion is clear. Instead of wasting time, effort and resources on what can only be a niche activity at best, we should recognize and protect the immense value stored in our natural environment and cultural heritage, and leverage that value through carefully planned, low-impact tourism.
So it is simply counterfactual to suggest that agriculture can provide the large-scale economic returns that the country requires to develop, although small farming operations focusing on tourism may work.
Two good examples of this are Goodfellow's Farm near the Lynden Pindling International Airport, and the three-year-old Freetown Farm on Gand Bahama. They practice a form of market gardening. Goodfellow's has a restaurant and farm shop to create a successful boutique destination. And the 20-acre Freetown Farm offers tours and horse riding, in addition to selling eggs, seasonal fruits and vegetables.
To me, the conclusion is clear. Instead of wasting time, effort and resources on what can only be a niche activity at best, we should recognize and protect the immense value stored in our natural environment and cultural heritage, and leverage that value through carefully planned, low-impact tourism.
Larry you have done your research and you make absolute sense. Now unless someone can refute your evidence directly they should shut the hell up.
Posted by: Ken Clarke | February 25, 2013 at 05:24 PM
Larry, Your information is sound. The same challenges have to be addressed for any type of manufacturing as well, within the country. I was involved with a manufacturing operation previously. We had to import all of our ingredients & packaging etc. Then produce the products using Bahamian labour. While I was able to improve on the inefficiencies of the process, I was hit with not enough Local demand for the products. That meant exporting to the bigger market of the USA. But they already had domestic supplies of similar products and with the higher costs of our products & freight charges, it was a NO GO. The Economies of Scale demand that you produce great quantities before 'retooling' your production lines.
The Government incentives do not offset the transportation charges of component imports & Product exports.
Unless the product that is being produced is strictly dependent on the Local market for consumption it will not be financially viable. The only example that readily comes to mind is Drinking Water as a suitable local product for local manufacture.
Posted by: Alfred B Dorsett | February 26, 2013 at 07:46 AM
Well researched, and your conclusion aligns with my experiences farming in south Florida and what I have observed in the Bahamas.
I would add that high-value farming can work very well with low-impact tourism. Anything on a restaurant menu or at a roadside stand that says "locally grown" is something tourists will buy just so they can have an authentic experience. I have heard many visitors express disappointment that there were so few locally grown fruits and vegetables available to them in the Family Islands.
Posted by: Bob Knaus | February 26, 2013 at 07:49 AM
We have never met but from to time I have enjoyed reading your commentary. Sadly, I cannot say the same for this article.
The correct term, whIch you misquoted, from a previous article published in your very same paper, is 'vertical integration'. ThIs commonly used term refers to the integration by a business, generally through acquisition, of another company that is involved with the manufacturing or production of the same product, albeit at an earlier stage in the process.
An example of this would be a water company buying a resin producer which in turn would reduce the costs of manufacturing the plastIc bottles to package it's water.
Once one understands the process, the benefits of a food retailer buying a cannery should be obvious. I promise you that it will be abundantly obvious to the everyday shopper when they see how much more affordable certain food items can be.
As far as your thoughts on our proposed project for Andros, I think you failed to recognIze the most obvious difference between our project and those that failed in the past. It is the size, funding and scope that not only distinguishes this project, but assures a far greater chance of it's success.
It would be the equivalent of trying to construct a $1 billion bridge with $100 million. The concept may be right, the need may be there, but in the absence of reaching the critical mass needed, the project is doomed to fail.
From the tenor of your article it is clear that you neither care for, or have any respect for me. I don't really know why you feel about me the way you do, though I am sure you have your reasons.
But should you ever care to meet, I would be more than happy to share with you my hopes and thoughts, for this beautiful country. In the meantime, I will continue to strive to make a positive difference.
Posted by: Sandy Schaeffer | February 27, 2013 at 03:36 PM
Nice work on the food self-sufficiency article in the paper today. Well written and certainly well researched (from experience it seems!)
Now, let’s see if anyone pays any attention to your call for increased “planned, low-impact tourism.” I’m not holding my breath, but . . . .
Posted by: Joe Euteneur | February 27, 2013 at 04:06 PM
There can be no vertical integration as Schaeffer suggests on Andros because the supply chain does not exist. There's nothing to acquire - except land. I have a a hard-won cynicism that I feel bound to express as a journalist when I see such ideas being peddled to a naive public. So many have come forth with this kind of thing over the years. Throwing out ridiculous figures like billions of dollars and thousands of jobs does nothing to encourage respect.
Posted by: larry smith | February 27, 2013 at 06:01 PM
You hit the nail on the head in your last paragraph. I think that on a whole agriculture is extremely difficult here and expensive. The soil is near non existant, so you have to build up your own. The government says it supports farming but it's a load of crap. They actually hinder it for the most part. I know first hand that a lot of Bahamians do not have the time, energy, money knowledge or work ethic to put into farming. the days of back yard farms are pretty much gone. The other problem is that the land that the government alocates for farming at least on GB is in huricane flood areas. Which to me is just setting up these people for failure. Why on earth would you lease land to people that you know floods salt water to grow veggies and house animals. Storm comes and animals and crops die? It's totally unacceptable.
Posted by: Ol Freetown Farm | February 28, 2013 at 07:05 AM
You are right-on concerning massive farming.
You should put Mike and Jennifer Lightbourn’s Abaco farm on your radar. They are young, ambitious and doing it differently. Their farm is down at Schooner Bay, but outside the development on commonage land.
The Chinese seem to be headed our way and we have EcoExpan LLC now here getting started quietly. Not sure about them, growing for Publix, Costco, etc. not the domestic market. Chinese will be growing for Hong Kong, not us. But, their pollutants will remain in our water supply.
My observation is that agriculture should be given to tourism. Let them find a successful farmer in Manitoba, North Dakota, Nova Scotia who is allergic to frostbite. Encourage him to come with his family and maybe a another family. They will need help - local. We might learn how to do it.
Posted by: dave ralph | February 28, 2013 at 08:12 AM
Excellent piece. Most sensible piece on Bahamas agriculture I've seen in many years.
Posted by: Bill Bardelmeier | March 01, 2013 at 06:46 AM
I hate your article.
I’ve always thought that there are few occupations as pure and gratifying or as necessary as being a farmer. Humans have yet to reach anything resembling equilibrium with the environment and are, by and large, consumers. Thus meeting one of the most basic demands of life, food, is as righteous a calling as priest in my book.
So I have for years, and I do mean years, followed the latest technology in farming and the macro-economic forces that drive demand for it -hypocritically, as I am a computer technician who has always lived in the city.
I long for sovereign independence from the coming power grab over water, energy, economy, and food and have fantasized countless times how I would, if given autocratic rule, make this country the envy of the region, if not the world.
I read your article. I wanted to hate it. With every paragraph I could feel my mind vociferously (just learned the word) lobbing counter-arguments at any stray fact that seemed even overtly debatable.
I wanted you to say something...well, frankly more Bahamian. I wanted you to say it can’t be done because it hasn’t been done. I wanted you to blame a political party or make it personal by simply saying what most Bahamians, myself included, know in our heart but won’t say aloud - that I’d like it done but I’m not going to be the one to do it.
I wanted something easy like blaming this new generation for being lazy or too comfortable working white collar jobs to carve a living and all that. As you probably guessed by now you didn’t, so I couldn’t - hate it that is.
The truth is that communication and logistics have shrunk our world and there’s no room for islands unto themselves anymore. It's criminally inefficient to insist upon a people mastering something they’re not suited for when there is a large well-priced specialist within our proximity.
Why artificially raise the price of imported food so that the lower quality, less numerous local product can attempt to compete? It just seems prideful. Why not instead leave it to those who can and refocus our energies on being specialists of our own?
The government has been sincerely pushing agriculture for as long as I can remember and to what end? How many millions of dollars will we squander and acres give away chasing this?
If by some miracle we can produce enough to meet demand and at prices and quality where our own people are not tempted and the local cuisine appended to deliberately make use of the local goods, we will still have to deal with the more diverse ingredients of our evolving tastes and hope that the world took a nap and stopped progressing while we worked.
And all of this just to be as well fed as we already are today! My father was offered one of those agricultural properties for lease. Pennies on the acre to keep a vegetable garden until it got “sorted out”. Even that was too much work for him. The area is a subdivision now; huge lots, rental units and Bahamian suburbia.
You didn’t even bring up how America, the standard bearer, must heavily subsidize its own agriculture industry just to keep it going. I’ve changed my mind. I think that I do hate your article. I just can’t disagree with it.
Posted by: Taurian Ferguson | March 01, 2013 at 06:54 AM
While I will agree that we will not and should not become fully self-sufficient there is strong merit to pursuing agriculture and agricultural development.
By your own admission capturing niche markets is something that we have the ability to do. Considering the premium paid for organic crops (where we would not have to worry about the inputs coming on the boat) that is an area we can consider. Again agritourism that you mentioned (Goodfellow) is another area that we should be focused on. Even if we get every citizen to have a backyard farm that would indeed decrease our food bill, which is a significant bill!
Countries like America (Farm Bill) , Europe and Asia ALL SUBSIDIZE their farmers, with greater subsides than we even consider! Our new representative for IICA is from the DR and he never indicated that their incentives were used as disincentives for producers. So while it is true, because I believe in comparative advantage, I don't think we should aim for full self-sufficiency but I do know that we CAN cut our import bill, through organic production, agritourism, backyard farming and better policies to promote agriculture.
I am certain when you spoke to Tim he also explained that wholesalers would purchase inferior quality product over theirs and try to ask them for the same price for their goods.
Posted by: Erecia Hepburn | March 04, 2013 at 07:44 PM
But self-sufficiency is the stated goal of the politicos and their consultants, from time immemorial. And as you say that goal is illusory.
The point of my article is that we should not be destroying our natural environment (which is our real comparative advantage) while wasting major public resources and effort on an illusory goal.
I am all for whatever small-scale farming we can implement successfully - and your suggestions are well taken.
Yes, countries in the US and Europe and Asia do subsidise their agriculture for various reasons - but they also produce huge surpluses.
Posted by: larry smith | March 05, 2013 at 07:47 AM
An excellent response in the comments. At the risk of turning this into a broader philosophical debate, this is an example of the difference between personal virtue and good public policy.
We admire people who plant their own gardens, fix up old cars, avoid going into debt, turn the other cheek, don't gamble, and give money to the poor. But these good individual actions do not always make good national policies. What is good for me to do may not be good for me to join in making other people do.
Posted by: Bob Knaus | March 06, 2013 at 05:52 PM
I attended the agexpo on all three days in the opening the PM stated that we could only produce in niche markets. When speaking about self-sufficiency they realize that we can not grow everything that we consume but have the understanding that we can grow more than we do now. While I am with you we need to monitor our natural resources the place where the agr school is being considered was already on farm land, there is no new destruction taking place. If we successfully implement small scale (please note this is relative, as I have work on farms in the US whose "small" is larger than our largest) we can become self sufficient even if on 1-3 crops. Food Safety and Security are real issues that we have to find ways of addressing. I am aware of several young people that are interested in the agriculture sector and this school is something they want to be a part of. So I applaud the government on this.
Posted by: Erecia Hepburn | March 09, 2013 at 02:03 PM
Well don't forget the point that this has all been done and said many times before, without much success. And I dare say that the more cautious recent comments (as opposed to self-sufficiency) are due to my article.
Posted by: larry smith | March 09, 2013 at 04:50 PM