A bold new initiative to strengthen Barbados’ agricultural sector and boost national food security has earned broad praise from farming and retail stakeholders, after Prime Minister Mia Mottley called on leading local supermarket chain Massy Supermarkets to formalize contract purchasing agreements with local producers, backed by a $2 million quarterly government funding commitment.
Mottley first outlined the proposal during Monday’s reopening ceremony for Massy Stores’ Worthing branch in Christ Church, an event that marked the completion of a $46 million upgrade to the location. In her remarks, the prime minister argued that the longstanding informal system of crop purchasing fails to give local farmers the confidence to scale up production. “You cannot ask farmers to increase output based only on the chance that supermarkets will buy their harvest,” she emphasized, pushing for contract buy-in arrangements to become a core, formal component of the chain’s sourcing strategy.
Under the plan, the Barbadian government will allocate $2 million each quarter to support the rollout of the contract framework. This public funding will empower the Barbados Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (BADMC) and Export Barbados to collaborate with Massy and other industry stakeholders to speed up growth of the country’s agro-processing segment, a key target for economic diversification.
The Barbados Association of Retailers, Vendors and Entrepreneurs (BARVEN), which represents thousands of local industry operators, has fully endorsed the government and prime minister’s push. BARVEN president Alister Alexander commended Mottley for turning years of preliminary discussions between the government, industry groups and farmers into actionable policy. “This initiative has been in the works for years, as we all recognized that scattered individual effort could not build a resilient, growing agricultural sector,” Alexander explained.
Alexander noted that guaranteed off-take through formal contracts delivers the long-sought market certainty that farmers need to invest in expansion, while the quarterly funding commitment proves the government is committed to delivering tangible change rather than just holding discussions. For the plan to succeed, he added, stronger coordinated farmer organizations will be critical: formal contract purchasing, agro-industrial development and export market access all require consistent production standards, sufficient scale and centralized coordination that only structured farmer groups can provide.
Former BARVEN vice president Erskine Forde also joined in welcoming the proposal, framing it as a long-awaited fix for persistent problems that have held back local producers for decades. Forde pointed out that many farmers have faced repeated broken promises from retailers who commit to purchasing crops then back out, while other major retailers limit their local supplier base to a small, closed group of producers, shutting out smaller operations.
With global and local input costs rising steadily in recent years, farming has become an increasingly risky proposition for Barbadian producers, Forde explained. Formal contract buy-in removes that uncertainty by guaranteeing farmers an outlet for their harvest before they plant. “When a farmer knows exactly where their crop will be sold and what price they will get, they can stop spending time and resources hunting for buyers and focus entirely on growing high-quality produce,” he said, adding that the framework will create a far more sustainable ecosystem for long-term agricultural growth across the country.