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BAIC’s Assistant General Manager for agriculture, Arnold Dorsett (in cap) holds the Chinese team’s attention about what elephant grass is. (BIS photo/Gladstone Thurston)
by Larry Smith
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MARSH HARBOUR, Abaco—After trumpeting Chinese investment in "a very
large agricultural project" on
Abaco that would be up and running by
September, senior government officials are now backing off the subject.
Chinese experts visited
Abaco at least twice recently, with a view to
developing vegetable, fruit and livestock production on 5,000 acres of
prime land. Published reports say the Chinese are also talking about
food processing plants and providing millions of dollars in supplies and
equipment to local farmers.
But Agriculture Minister Larry Cartwright and Bahamas Agricultural
and Industrial Corporation chief Edison Key both said a few days ago
there is nothing to discuss. Their reticence probably has a lot to do
with
the undercurrent of opposition to the Chinese initiative among
Abaco's farmers and environmentalists.
"You just want to write about that so people can jump down my
throat," Key told me when I asked whether it was he or the Chinese who
had initiated the talks.
I spoke to Key at the All-Abaco Agribusiness Expo in Marsh Harbour
over the weekend - a colourful event that provided a good feel for the
state of farming on the one island where it has enjoyed some success. It
was opened by the prime minister, who acknowledged that while food
security was a serious matter, government agricultural aid over the
years had produced little value for money.
Although Abaco briefly exported sisal, pineapples and citrus in the
19th century, modern commercial farming began in the early 1950s, with
the arrival of a retired American industrialist named
James Crockett at a
time when thousands of Bahamians were still working on Florida farms
because of the lack of opportunities at home. Crockett bought more than
2,000 acres of Crown land near Marsh Harbour to start the Heveatex
Plantation in 1956. And a young Edison Key became his diesel mechanic.
Ten years later
Owens-Illinois exchanged its logging concession for
20,000 acres of land south of Marsh Harbour that it cleared to grow
sugar cane. A processing plant was also built, the remains of which can
still be seen near Snake Cay, but after two years of losses the company
realized Abaco could not grow a cane crop good enough to produce raw
sugar profitably.
By 1978, the cane plantation had reverted to the government, and it
is this already prepared land that
BAIC is now leasing to local farmers
at $25 per acre per year. Also on offer is land north of Treasure Cay
that was originally farmed by
Edison Key and
Morton Sawyer in the 1970s.
"I shipped 600,000 bushels of cucumbers a year to the US in the 70s,"
Key told me on Saturday, "and we also grew peppers and tomatoes. Then
we converted to citrus, which was a year-round crop and less labour
intensive. We have the potential to feed this country and to export -
but you have to have the labour."
In the late 1980s the original Key-Sawyer farm was renamed Bahama
Star. It continued to export limes, grapefruits, oranges and lemons to
Florida until the early 2000s, when citrus canker disease forced the
industry to shut down. In 2005 all the orchards were destroyed by
government order.
This left only a handful of viable farming operations on Abaco, most
of which had booths at the agribusiness expo. They include Nick
Miaoulis' Neem farm, which packages some 20 different organic products
made from the oil and leaves of the 7,000 Neem trees he planted on 120
acres south of Marsh Harbour. Native to South Asia, Neem has proven
pharmaceutical properties.
The Abaco Sod Farm has leased 400 acres of the old cane plantation
and ships some 100 pallets of grass sod a week to Nassau. Abaco Big Bird
produces thousands of chickens for the local and Nassau markets. Mel
Wells' Pepperpot Farms plants seven acres of vegetables at a time and
also produces honey from 30 beehives. Lightbourne Farms grows hydroponic
produce on 10 acres near Spring City. And Pauline Sawyer plants about
50 acres of vegetables that are mostly marketed in Nassau. All told,
there are about 20 small farmers that sell to the Abaco market.
Those I spoke to at the expo had
serious misgivings about the
Chinese, fearing that any large-scale project would flood the local
market and put them out of business. But obviously, much of their
apprehension is fed by a lack of information. And since top government
officials have backed off the subject, clarification is hard to come by.
Initial reports said the Chinese were interested in large-scale
farming of vegetables, fruit and livestock. They proposed a processing
plant, cannery and abattoir, and said they would give local farmers as
much as $8 million dollars in equipment, as well as six 40-foot trailers
filled with coconut and pineapple slips, seeds and other supplies.
"The extent to which they will be involved at this point we have not
determined, but they are interested in helping in all areas," Edison Key
was earlier quoted as saying. One question to be answered is why? Are
we talking about an aid programme like the US-led Bahamas Agricultural,
Research and Training and Development project on Andros in the 1970s? Or
will this be a
Chinese-operated commercial farm? Or what?
Well, as I said, those in a position to know are not talking. But we
do know there has been recent interest in large-scale land acquisitions
in developing countries for farm production as a hedge against rising
food prices. The countries acquiring such land include China, South
Korea and the Arab Gulf states, all of which have major official
reserves derived from oil revenues or trade surpluses.
China already operates a number of 1,000 hectare (2471 acres)
Friendship Farms in several African countries that are owned by Chinese
state enterprises. In fact, it is estimated that a million Chinese farm
labourers are working in Africa, but most products from these farms are
marketed locally. And since China is a net food exporter, analysts tend
to discount the food security argument as a motive for Chinese
agricultural investment overseas.
Chinese companies already have big investments in the Bahamas,
especially Hutchison Whampoa, Li Ka-Shing, the Hong Kong-based conglomerate, in
Freeport. China is also financing the Baha Mar project on New Providence
and eyeing other projects on Grand Bahama. In fact, it
is playing a
strong role throughout the region as a member of the Caribbean
Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, which it
joined two years ago with a contribution of $350 billion.
A high-level delegation of Chinese officials and business leaders
visited Nassau last year and signed a series of economic deals,
including an investment agreement, a multi-million dollar loan to build a
highway to Nassau’s international airport, and additional support for
the sports stadium now being built by the same Chinese enterprise that
is interested in agricultural development on Abaco.
Analysts say
China’s strategy in the Caribbean is driven by a desire
to invest its huge US currency reserves in projects to ensure regional
support for China in multilateral organizations, and to isolate Taiwan
on the world stage. But we are left to speculate on such matters, since
information is such a scarce commodity in the Bahamas - particularly
when it is controlled by the public sector.
"When Owens-Illinois cleared all that land for the sugar plantation
in the 60s, the government didn't consult anyone and no-one had anything
to say about it," Key told me indignantly. "It's not easy being in
government, you know. We have to find jobs for the thousands of kids
coming out of school every year or they will eat us. The
environmentalists don't create any jobs."
That reference was a response to concerns raised about pollution from
unregulated farming projects. Former agricultural officer John Hedden,
writing in the Abaconian newspaper, pointed out that "The northern
Bahamas holds the total potable water reserves for the whole of the
country; and this reserve is non-renewable - when it is destroyed, it is
lost for ever. This also applies to our wetlands, our marls and our
creek systems. These are all extensions of this one fresh water system
and serve to nurture our fisheries.
"With such a large area going into food production, the environment,
the land, the fresh water aquifer, the native ecosystems and our unique
biodiversity will be threatened. Systems and controls must be put in
place. Are we going to allow an unmonitored agricultural enterprise
threatening the largest fresh water lens of the island because it will
provide a few menial jobs?" he asked.
And the number of jobs that will be created by a potential Chinese
investment is another key unknown (pun intended). According to the BAIC
chief, all skilled labourers on previous American- or Bahamian-owned
commercial farms have been Bahamians. In fact, Key himself is a prime
example of one of these who went on to become a successful export
farmer. And he is the first to acknowledge that
one of the the
government's concerns would be the number of Chinese who would be
involved in the project.
According to Ejnar Cornish, who heads BAIC's Abaco office, Bahamians
should have an open mind and learn as much from the Chinese as they can
if the project becomes a reality. "Mr. Key has been working hard to get
the Chinese in here because he wants the Bahamas to be able to feed
itself," Cornish said. "He has continued to dialogue with Chinese
investors and great progress is being made."
Meanwhile, Hedden's view is that for agriculture to create jobs for
Bahamians, rather than Haitians or Chinese, we need to encourage
entrepeneurship.
"The fear is that the Chinese will take advantage of
what we have in the short term and leave us with a massive pollution
problem from overuse of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. They will
put their product on the local market and Bahamian farmers may as well
kiss their livelihood goodbye. Market garden and backyard farming is the
only answer."
This is similar to the view held by
Ian Goodfellow, who runs a
successful four-acre market garden farm, restaurant and gourmet shop
near the airport in Nassau. He believes that small operations focusing
on agricultural tourism are the key to success in the Bahamas. And Keith
Campbell, of the agricultural producers association, insists that no
foreigners should be allowed to invest in agriculture without
significant Bahamian participation.
"All agricultural land that has been previously cleared and tilled
should be strictly reserved for use by Bahamians," he wrote recently in
the Bahama Journal. "Absolutely no foreign investor should be granted
access to this land unless they are part of a joint venture with
Bahamians, helping to develop our indigenous food production capacity."
Any Chinese initiative should be modelled on the BARTAD project in
Andros, he said, with Bahamian satellite farmers in a cooperative
structure tied into a central hub targeting the domestic and export
markets.
Despite the incessant talk about agriculture, the Bahamas is hardly
an ideal environment. Physical conditions are harsh, rainfall is
erratic, irrigation is lacking, crops require heavy inputs of costly
fertilizers and pesticides, economies of scale are impossible to
achieve, distribution systems are undeveloped, and
production relies
almost exclusively on immigrant labour.
But there have been some successes in the past, and Edison Key
represents one of those successes. So if he is convinced that Chinese -
or American - investment in our agricultural sector would be a good
thing, he should be prepared to explain and defend it.
Major projects in our small island communities demand full discussion so
that any negatives involved can be addressed. And there is certainly no
shortage of failed grandiose projects to point to in this regard.
