{"id":20152,"date":"2012-04-02T10:04:41","date_gmt":"2012-04-02T14:04:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/?p=20152"},"modified":"2012-04-04T23:18:17","modified_gmt":"2012-04-05T03:18:17","slug":"bahamians-benefitting-from-agro-processing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2012\/04\/bahamians-benefitting-from-agro-processing","title":{"rendered":"Bahamians Benefitting From Agro-Processing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
BAIC executive chairman Edison Key received agro processing expert Donna Marie Bromfield\u2019s report on her five-island course in food processing. Pictured from left are assistant general manager (agriculture) Arnold Dorsett, Mrs Bromfield, Mr. Key, senior food processing officer Tonjia Burrows, and general manager Benjamin Rahming. (BIS Photo\/Gladstone Thurston)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Through courses in agro-processing, Bahamians are being taught to turn surplus tomatoes into ketchup and pizza sauce.<\/p>\n

An initiative of Bahamas Agricultural and Industrial Corporation (BAIC), participants from five islands took the latest month-long course which ended last week.<\/p>\n

They were taught by food processing expert Donna Marie Bromfield, secretary of the Jamaica Agro Processors Association, and vice president of Jamaica\u2019s National Food Standards Committee.<\/p>\n

She was accompanied by BAIC\u2019s senior food processing officer Tonjia Burrows, who demonstrated testing equipment needed to ensure quality control.<\/p>\n

Presentations were also made on sanitation and food hygiene in ensuring food safety.<\/p>\n

Mrs Bromfield said she was encouraged by the response of participants from Abaco, Long Island, Exuma, Andros, and Eleuthera.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were all very receptive,\u201d said Mrs Bromfield, a 20-year veteran in the agro-processing industry. \u201cThey are all eager to go. They are poised to take off.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, without them having a facility in place they cannot do much more because they are operating from their kitchens now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Products created included ketchup, spicy tomato jam, pizza sauce, fresh lime juice, and candied lime peel.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a total package we had for them, but for anyone who is now going to say \u2018I want to do this further\u2019 would need specialised attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opportunities in agro-industry lie in processing tomatoes, onions, limes, coconuts, pineapples, mangoes, guavas, potatoes, bananas, plantains and peppers.<\/p>\n

She told of producing pastes, pickles, juices, cheeses, chips, flour, cereals, oils, and milk products, among other new items, locally.<\/p>\n

She promised to approach the Jamaica Bureau of Standards to take on any testing of products from The Bahamas.<\/p>\n

Agro-processing is a key element in the government\u2019s thrust toward food security.<\/p>\n

Toward that end, the Ministry of Agriculture and Marine Resources, through BAIC, has conducted a series of Family Island training by its unit responsible for value added activities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see a lot of promise,\u201d said BAIC executive chairman Edison Key. He received Mrs Bromfield\u2019s report last week. He also sampled some of the products. \u201cI love it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are pleased that you can come in and share some of your expertise with us,\u201d he told her. \u201cFood processing is something we are really trying to move again here in The Bahamas.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a former commercial farmer, he recalled when The Bahamas grew and processed fruits and vegetables for export.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the direction I hope that we can move towards while we develop the agricultural sector to tie it in to food processing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are making some progress but we still import up to $500 million worth of food, a lot of which we can produce here in these islands.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see food processing as a major player in not only job creation, but also in the establishment of sound careers in related fields.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is nothing more important to a country than food.\u201d<\/p>\n

BAIC\u2019s assistant general manager for agriculture, Arnold Dorsett, said he was pleased with the results.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis demonstration shows that we can produce good quality, reasonably-priced products right here in The Bahamas from locally grown produce.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot of surplus that we are losing because we are not processing, and this initiative is to utilise that surplus.\u201d<\/p>\n

By Gladstone Thurston
\nBahamas Information Services<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Through BAIC courses in agro-processing, Bahamians are being taught to turn surplus tomatoes into ketchup and pizza sauce. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[80,153,290,23,59],"class_list":["post-20152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-agriculture","tag-business-2","tag-entrepreneur","tag-food","tag-islands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}