标签： Barbados

Barbados’ agriculture sector is set for a major policy shift, as Agriculture Minister Dr. Shantal Munro-Knight pushes to overhaul the government’s relationship with local farmers by linking public investment directly to verifiable production outcomes. The proposal, which introduces stricter accountability requirements for producers seeking state support, has already earned early endorsement from the head of the island nation’s oldest agricultural advocacy group.

Delivering a core plank of her policy vision at a Monday breakfast colloquium hosted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food and Nutritional Security, Dr. Munro-Knight emphasized that while the government remains committed to investing in the agricultural sector, the current model of unconditioned public resourcing is no longer fiscally sustainable. For years, she noted, publicly funded assets including allocated land, specialized equipment, and climate-resilient farming inputs have repeatedly failed to deliver tangible production gains.

To address this gap, the minister confirmed that new policy and regulatory frameworks are currently being drafted to embed stronger accountability measures, improve long-term sector planning, and ensure Barbadian taxpayers see greater return on public investments in agriculture. “We are also looking at how we establish frameworks for what I am going to call ensuring that when farmers and others access resources from the ministry, that we can also, in turn, get what we need,” she explained.

Dr. Munro-Knight highlighted widespread examples of wasted public resources across the sector, including cases of government-allocated farmland left completely idle for six to nine months after assignment, even as other producers wait for access to available growing space. “Other people want land, but I can’t give up the land just because your name is on a piece of paper that’s there,” she said.

She also shared details of a recent ministry initiative that provided climate-smart farming inputs designed to boost production efficiency, only for the entire project to conclude before any of the equipment was ever put to use on local farms. “The project ended… no implementation on the ground. None of those inputs have been put on farms,” she added.

Beyond stricter performance requirements, the minister argued that better stewardship of public resources depends on improved data sharing from the farming community. She noted that persistent gaps in basic agricultural data have severely limited the ministry’s ability to carry out strategic production planning, as many producers refuse to share details of crop yields, planted varieties, and harvest timelines. “We are trying to establish an information portal, but I have heard from my technical staff that we don’t get the information from the farmers when we come to them. Farmers don’t want to tell us what are their yields, what they’re growing, and when they’re going to be harvested. How are we to plan strategically if we don’t have the information?” she said.

While Dr. Munro-Knight said she prefers voluntary cooperation from the farming community, she did not rule out mandatory legislative or policy changes if resistance to data sharing and accountability continues. “If you want something from me, I need something from you,” she stated.

The minister’s policy direction received immediate public support during the subsequent question-and-answer session from James Paul, chief executive of the Barbados Agricultural Society (BAS) – the country’s oldest farming organization. Paul agreed that Barbados has reached a turning point where all government incentive programs must come with clear performance expectations.

“The Government of Barbados provides a tremendous amount of incentives to the agricultural sector. The question that needs to be asked is, is the Government insisting enough on performance, because that is an issue,” Paul said. A former Democratic Labour Party backbencher, Paul pointed to the local poultry industry as a key example, where production has declined despite ongoing government incentives. He argued that all state support must be paired with measurable, enforceable outcomes. “I think sometimes we need to tie the granting of incentives to also the provision of certain things at the same time because you can’t have it both ways,” he added.

Before Paul could conclude his remarks, Dr. Munro-Knight interjected to confirm the ministry is already moving forward with this policy approach, and to highlight that the alignment between the government and the BAS signals broad buy-in for the reform. “I just want the record to note very, very clearly what you said. So that when the ministry does it, then I can say that there’s agreement from BAS for it to be done because it’s one of the critical pillars for me. I’m very glad to hear that we are in perfect alignment, that incentives then should be very much tied to performance,” she told Paul.

Paul maintained that government incentives remain a critical policy tool to support the agricultural sector, but added that stronger oversight and accountability will deliver far better economic returns. He pointed to recent growth in Barbados’ cattle production, which followed targeted state support for livestock imports, as proof that paired incentives and performance requirements work. “You have seen, as a result, this year an increase in overall production happening. So you can see that some incentives being given, something’s happening, but I think it needs to be tighter,” he concluded.

Barbados Member of Parliament Kirk Humphrey has announced a slate of targeted constituency development projects for St Michael South, all centered on expanding economic and community opportunities for the region’s young entrepreneurs and residents. The lawmaker laid out the full scope of the upcoming initiatives during his constituency branch’s annual general meeting held Sunday, emphasizing that unlocking youth potential remains his top policy priority for the area.

One of the most advanced projects on the agenda is a new business empowerment hub, developed in partnership with the country’s Ministry of Youth, Sports and Community Development. Slated for construction on Jessamine Avenue in Bayville, the facility is designed to support early-stage small business owners in skilled trades including hairdressing, barbering, and automotive repair. With a site already secured, full funding approved, and architectural blueprints finalized, Humphrey confirmed that construction will kick off in the coming months, with capacity to host up five emerging entrepreneurs at the facility as they grow their operations.

In addition to the trade-focused hub, the constituency will gain a standalone community empowerment center, a long-awaited public space that St Michael South has never had. The planned facility will sit at the intersection of Villa Road and Brittons New Road, where the government is currently in the process of acquiring the required land. Currently, St Michael South shares public community space with neighboring St Michael Central and Christ Church West, a barrier that Humphrey says discourages local young people from accessing programming offered in the shared space. He also noted that once the area’s existing primary school relocates to its new campus, the vacated school hall will be repurposed for additional education and training programming, in collaboration with the Ministry of Educational Transformation’s training division, expanding public resources for constituents even further.

In a nod to local sporting history, Humphrey confirmed that Cabinet has approved a plan to rename the Bayland netball and basketball courts located outside Bay Primary School to honor the Banfield sisters, iconic figures in Caribbean netball. A public renaming ceremony is scheduled for mid-July to mark the change.

Finally, the representative announced a long-overdue major reconstruction project for the notoriously damaged sloping roadway in Reece Land, an issue that has plagued the community for more than two decades. Engineering assessments are already complete, but the project will require relocating four residential properties to accommodate the realigned, improved road. Working alongside the Ministry of Housing and the National Housing Corporation, the government is currently coordinating relocation support for the affected homeowners, and Humphrey says his team is working diligently to advance the project with the goal of breaking ground and completing reconstruction before the end of the calendar year.

Barbados’ newly appointed Minister of Agriculture Dr. Shantal Munro-Knight has laid out an ambitious, long-term strategic roadmap to reposition the agriculture sector from a overlooked production activity to a foundational pillar of national stability, backed by sweeping systemic reforms, expanded technical capabilities and an estimated $272 million in prioritized public investment. The plan, officially branded Agriculture 2030, was presented to industry stakeholders during a breakfast colloquium hosted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food and Nutritional Security at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre this Monday.

Dr. Munro-Knight, who assumed the agriculture portfolio after the February 11 general election, told attendees that national dialogue around agriculture has long been unnecessarily narrow, limited to just open-field crop production, which has shrunk the sector’s perceived and actual role in national life. Instead, she emphasized that agriculture is inextricably tied to three critical national priorities: long-term resilience, public health, and national security. “It’s not just about growing food,” she explained to gathered stakeholders. “It’s a national resilience conversation. It’s a health conversation. It’s a national security conversation.”

After taking office, the minister opted to delay quick, reactive policy changes to instead spend months consulting directly with farmers, ministry staff, and other interest groups to identify root causes of persistent sector challenges. She noted that while she faced pressure to roll out immediate changes, rushed action would only address surface-level issues without fixing deep-seated systemic problems. “When I came into the ministry, I was inundated with calls about what people wanted to see, what we needed to immediately… but I wanted to make sure that I resisted that notion of responding immediately because what happens at a systems level is you end up putting out fires, but you don’t deal with the root,” she said. Persistent problems including crop and livestock theft, destructive foraging by wild monkeys, declining soil fertility, and widespread pest damage are all examples of long-standing issues that demand coordinated, sustained action rather than short-term fixes, she added.

The Agriculture 2030 transformation strategy is built on four core pillars, starting with internal restructuring of the Ministry of Agriculture itself. “My first pillar… my starting point is I need to get my house right,” Dr. Munro-Knight stated. Internal reviews of existing projects and programs are already underway, with efforts focused on upgrading outdated internal processes via digital transformation, realigning human resource allocations, and making the ministry more responsive to the needs of farmers and industry participants. Several ongoing digital initiatives were highlighted during the colloquium, including a new centralized agricultural portal, expanded online services, and data-driven decision support tools that boost service delivery and open new market access for small producers. The newly launched Agridata platform was a key showcase: the tool centralizes market price data, production contract opportunities, harvest forecasts, and national agricultural statistics in a single accessible hub for all farmers.

While Dr. Munro-Knight praised the existing ministry staff for their commitment and subject-matter expertise, she emphasized that the current technical capacity is insufficient to support scaled growth. Currently, only 18 extension officers serve the entire island’s farming community. “We’re just not enough,” she said. “If I’m asking again for delivery at scale, I need to make sure that the ministry has the technical resources.”

The strategy’s second pillar centers on reconnecting ordinary Barbadians to agriculture, shifting public perception to recognize the sector’s full value. “I don’t believe that the average Barbadian has really connected with the value of agriculture,” the minister explained. “So part of that hearts and minds concept is about how do we reconnect Barbadians with the notion of agriculture and what we grow and the value of it.” To build this public connection, the ministry is developing youth outreach initiatives including tertiary-level agricultural internships, summer immersive programs that introduce young people to farming and agribusiness, and partnerships with primary and secondary schools to expand agricultural education and youth entrepreneurship training.

A third core pillar focuses on building industry-wide capacity through expanded technical support, broader adoption of agricultural technology, upgraded staff training, and strengthened quality assurance and regulatory frameworks to boost farmer support and overall sector competitiveness. Dr. Munro-Knight revealed that updated draft legislation regulating pesticide use, alongside new animal health and welfare laws, are already being prepared to modernize the country’s outdated regulatory system. The ministry will also prioritize risk management, with new targeted initiatives to crack down on persistent praedial larceny set to be announced in the near future. New governance and accountability measures will also be integrated into all programs to improve strategic planning and ensure public investment delivers transparent, measurable outcomes.

The final pillar of the roadmap is a major infrastructure investment and innovation agenda designed to modernize aging agricultural infrastructure and lay the groundwork for long-term, sustainable growth. The Barbadian government has already earmarked approximately $272 million (US$136 million) for high-priority infrastructure projects, including cold-chain storage networks, an export-certified produce packhouse, expanded agricultural laboratory services, revival of domestic cotton production, expansion of the Black Belly sheep industry, and other initiatives targeted at boosting sector productivity and global competitiveness. “All of these things are actively being worked on. All of these things are part of the flight path and on the way to be delivered,” the minister confirmed.

Despite the government’s aggressive investment and reform plan, Dr. Munro-Knight stressed that successful transformation of the sector will require collective action beyond the ministry. “Agriculture, food security, resilience, health – those are not just a ministry’s effort to deliver,” she said. “It has to be a holistic frame for delivery.”

Barbados’ Ministry of Transport and Works is moving forward with a long-awaited infrastructure project to widen the heavily traveled Ronald Mapp Highway (Highway 2A) into a four-lane dual carriageway, part of a national initiative to cut chronic traffic congestion across the island, Transport and Works Minister Kirk Humphrey has confirmed. The 12-kilometer arterial route, which has become the island’s second-busiest northern corridor over the past 40 years, runs parallel to the coastal Highway One, stretching from the D’Arcy Scott Roundabout in Warrens, St. Michael in the south to Mile-and-a-Quarter in St. Peter, with segments also cutting through St. Thomas and St. James. Currently, only the section from Warrens to the Redman’s Village/Bagatelle junction already operates as a four-lane road, leaving the vast majority of the highway as a congested two-lane thoroughfare. Making the announcement on the sidelines of his St. Michael South constituency branch’s annual general meeting on Sunday, Humphrey explained that the expansion project required a full redesign of the highway’s seven existing underpass bridges, as original engineering plans for earlier bridge upgrades did not account for the planned road widening. “Highway 2A has seven bridges running underneath it. To be able to widen that road, you obviously have to do the bridge work,” Humphrey said. “The ministry had already engaged on four of the bridges to be able to do some work, but they hadn’t accommodated for the expansion. We’re now in the process of reviewing and redesigning the bridge drawings for all seven bridges.” While the government awaits revised engineering schematics for all seven structures, paving work continues on the existing highway alignment toward Lancaster in St. James, and Minister Humphrey noted that the full expansion is on track to break ground imminently once design work wraps up. “It’s our intention to go for four lanes on that highway and to start our work as soon as possible,” he said. “Between the designing of the bridges and the design for the road, because people must understand that you have to design the road, you don’t just build a road, so that work should start very soon as well.” Beyond the Highway 2A expansion, Humphrey outlined the progress of dozens of road improvement projects launched across the island since he assumed office in February, highlighting that upgrades in Thorpes Cottage and Newbury, St. George have already been fully completed. In St. Lucy, the island’s largest-ever water infrastructure upgrade, which has laid 20 kilometers of new water pipes at a multi-million-dollar cost, required a follow-up road rehabilitation program after construction disturbed existing road surfaces. “St. Lucy has seen the most development in terms of water infrastructure in the history of our Barbados,” Humphrey said. “We’ve done about 20 kilometres of new pipe at millions of dollars in St. Lucy, but the unfortunate thing is that once you lay pipe, you’re disturbing the road, so we have to go back and do a number of those roads as well. But we’ve already started that.” The ministry has also launched a new phase of its island-wide pothole repair program, contracting two private local firms – INFRA and C O Williams – to handle pothole patching and road reinstatement work across the country. INFRA is currently focusing on pothole repairs in the southern parishes, while C O Williams is leading work in the north, with most repair sites already active. Addressing another long-standing public complaint, Humphrey said the ministry has also launched a dedicated project to bring raised and sunken manholes across the island level with road surfaces, eliminating a persistent source of vehicle damage and driver inconvenience. To help the ministry prioritize repairs, Humphrey encouraged Barbadian residents to report potholes and other road hazards through the newly launched Pearly mobile app, as well as through social media and direct communication channels. “Use the Pearly app or any other source to be able to just let us know where the areas of concern are, and I’ve been trying to respond to people when they message me,” he said. “I try to send somebody to do the work, when they call me, when I see on Instagram, I try to respond, but we also have to be strategic, you know, you can’t just be ad hoc, so we have a strategic pothole plan in place.” Humphrey also acknowledged a gap in public communication around infrastructure projects, committing the ministry to improve transparency around project timelines and delays moving forward. “What I have to do is just communicate to the public a little bit better about where we’re going, when there are delays, why there are delays, and so on, so that the public is not caught off guard,” he said.