Bahamas Agricultural and Industrial Corporation (BAIC) has set out to boost local plantain and banana production.\u00a0 To that end, it has distributed 3,000 tissue-cultured plantlets to farmers throughout the islands.<\/p>\n
And, assistant general manager (agriculture) Arnold Dorsett has confirmed that pineapple plantlets are being compiled for distribution.\u00a0 \u201cThere is a healthy market for these products and we want farmers to be in a strong position to take advantage of every opportunity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Already one of the greenhouses at the North Andros agri-industrial park is being stocked with plantlets for propagation and distribution.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a matter of priority that we do whatever we can to inspire farmers towards increased production,\u201d said BAIC executive chairman Edison M Key.<\/p>\n
\u201cFood and Agriculture Organisation director-general Jacques Diouf put it plain: \u2018We are indeed on the verge of what could turn out to be another major food crisis,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe spoke of \u2018soaring agricultural commodity prices in international markets.\u2019 Since we import most of our food, that means we are going to have to spend more and get less.<\/p>\n
\u201cI agree with the secretary-general that the time has come to adopt and implement policies that will enable all farmers to earn decent incomes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey must be allowed to exercise their profession under conditions of dignity so we can feed our growing nation and the millions of tourists who visit us each year, without having to rely so heavily on imports, the cost of which is ever increasing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lucayan Tropical, the nation\u2019s premier hydroponics operator, was contracted to prepare the tissue culture materials, and harden-off the plantlets to about four feet. They were then distributed through farmers associations and groups.\u00a0 The first distribution of plantain plantlets are coming into production.<\/p>\n
Already farmers have begun thinning out suckers which will grow into new plants and themselves produce more suckers. Some plants can produce up to 10 suckers.\u00a0 Two weeks ago the first 300 tissue-cultured plantain plantlets for the year were distributed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe important thing is that we are getting clean tissue-cultured material out into the farming community where they can multiply and provide fresh material for farmers,\u201d said Mr Dorsett.\u00a0 BAIC is in the process of sourcing some 5,000 tissue-cultured pineapple slips. They are of the annas comosus or smooth cayenne variety.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese will be disseminated to farmers so they can put these new clean virus-free tissue-cultured pineapple slips out into the field and begin to expand their variety and benefit from some of the new characteristics of some of these pineapples,\u201d said Mr Dorsett.\u00a0 As the name implies, the leaves of the smooth cayenne are not spiny like those of the local sugar loaf variety.<\/p>\n
\u201cBahamian growers might find these more appealing,\u201d said Mr Dorsett.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are very productive. They grow large and they are very sweet.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are trying to improve on size and variety so we can have pineapples coming on the market earlier or later than usual.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was hopeful of the co-operation of all government agencies involved in agriculture, \u201cso that when farmers produce, they have access to the market.\u00a0 \u201cIf we are not harmonised in our efforts then, while farmers are growing excellent quality products, if the market doesn\u2019t know the products are available, imports will be coming in to compete when in fact there would be no need for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
By Gladstone Thurston
\nBahamas Information Services<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bahamas Agricultural and Industrial Corporation (BAIC) has set out to boost local plantain and banana production.<\/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":[23,40],"class_list":["post-8091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-food","tag-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8091","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=8091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8091\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}