Recently the energetic Minister for Agriculture announced a $42M Five Year Plan to stimulate food production, roughly 8M per year. Considering that the annual estimates for the years 2002 – 2009 averaged about 3M per year the increase to $8M is a huge leap.
In earlier years Mr. Pierre Dupuch as the Hon. Minister of Agriculture took interest in banana production. The strategy then was to support banana growing with high tariffs on imported bananas as protectionist policy for the farmers to encourage more production. No one doubts that Mr. Dupuch made a concerted effort but in spite of the high tariffs on the imports the local growers were unable to supply the market with edible fruit at prices equal to or below that of the imports.
The above is an example of government funding with good intentions but when judged on the results turned out to be a failure.
Read the complete article by Joan Thompson from the Nassau Institute by following the link below.
