Farm data gap ‘hampering’ food production drive

The government’s drive to reduce the food import bill is being hampered by a lack of data from farmers on what they are planting, when crops are being planted and when they are expected to be harvested, farm minister Dr Shantal Munro-Knight has told Barbados TODAY.

She said: “One of our issues that we have within the ministry is not being able to get sufficient data from farmers. That will help us with our production targets. If we don’t know what the farmers are planting, when they are, when they’re going to plant them, and then the harvest, it then becomes difficult to set targets and then also as well see where we are and that is one of the things that we’ve been butting up against consistently.”

Dr Munro-Knight said the lack of information makes it difficult for the Ministry of Agriculture to establish production targets and track its progress under its crop escalation programme.