Above: crops in Barbados

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Barbados needs a “serious rethink” of its agricultural model, according to National Agricultural Commission Chairman Dr Chelston Brathwaite.

“This colonial agricultural model favours a small mercantile minority of the society but does not contribute, in my view, to the sustainability or the growth of the economy,” he said. “It is based on a product that is not longer sweet economically.”

According to Brathwaite, agriculture, once a significant economic activity in the country, had now become marginalised as Barbados has moved toward a service-oriented economy.

Barbados, therefore, needs to shift its thinking on the agricultural sector, he said.

“A program that recognises that the recent increases in food prices is not a temporary phenomenon but structural change driven by climate change,” he said.

This is all part of a trend, he said, of a continued “high price of oil, the use of agricultural products for biofuel production and world demand for more food due to population growth and urbanisation.”