The President of the Cayman Islands
Agricultural Society Errol Watler and
the society’s board of directors aim
to transform agriculture into a major
industry in Cayman.
Residents of the Cayman Islands may soon be able to buy fresh, nutritious, field-ripened and cheaper food thanks to a new move by the agricultural society to feed the country.
According to the President of the Cayman Islands Farmers Society, Errol Watler, his board is working on a five to 10-year strategic plan to improve farming so that it can be the third leg of the economy of the Cayman Islands, following finance and tourism. That 98 percent of food consumed in Cayman Islands is imported, shows the big potential farmers would have to meet market needs, he noted.
Mr Watler said that for farmers to achieve food sufficiency, they needed to pay less lip service to the industry and look at technical commitments, negotiate agro loans and interest-free grants that will take them into full-scale agricultural production.
He noted that with the United Nations warning of food shortages in the world because exporting countries are now consuming what they grow at home and with rising oil prices affecting production and distribution costs, Cayman farmers need to look more seriously at local food production.
He acknowledged that to meet the demand, land needed to be available and the Agricultural Society was hoping to speak to the government with a view of leasing land so that they could start farming in the Eastern districts.
The Society would wish to work with the Immigration Department to ensure that skilled laborers are allowed to reside in the country on a temporary basis during the planting and harvesting seasons in which farm work would be intensive, Mr Watler stated.
“We also need a proper marketing strategy for crops to be able to be sold to supermarkets, condominiums and restaurants,” he said.
Should Cayman become self-sufficient in food production, the country’s foreign currency reserves would expand through savings on the food import bill, Mr Watler noted.
He emphasised the need for piblic education, starting from the primary school level, so that young people could learn to farm crops and livestock and become enthusiastic about it.
As for crops, Mr Watler said that tomatoes, pepper, vegetables, cucumbers, cassava, and sweet corn would receive the heaviest concentration because of the ability of such plants to grow locally. He said Caymanian produce would stand quality tests, being freshly harvested and ripening naturally in the field, as opposed to harvesting of immature crops and then using artificial means to ripen.
He said that high-tech farming would be started with greenhouses put in place, along with facilities for raising lobsters, conch, shrimps, crayfish and tilapia.
Such a process would have to ensure zero discharge of water, he noted.
Mr Watler implored farmers in Cayman not to use the hobby approach to farming, because it was time to grow this into an industry.
