Minister of Agriculture, Marine Resources and Family Island Affairs, the Hon. Clay Sweeting participated in CARICOM meetings centered on food security this week.
At a press conference held on the subject, Minister Sweeting spoke on food security in The Bahamas. “Growing up, it was very easy to go and grab some food of your grandfather’s tree or in the farm locally but now its more costly to farm. So for us at the ministry, we’re trying to find ways to ensure that local produce are cheaper for Bahamians to buy. Cause at the end of the day, if you’re going to choose between a healthy meal and something that’s cheaper a lot of times Bahamians would choose the cheaper option.”
Sweeting went further saying, “as much as we want support from other countries we also would want that technical support and expertise to ensure that we develop agri-food systems in The Bahamas. We import 95% of the food that we eat now, so its important that we try to develop the sector that we have because we have a lot of tradition farmers that can make it, that can farm but their issue is being able to farm in a competitive way because most farmers lose money.”
