Agriculture in St. Kitts and Nevis

I went to St. Kitts and Nevis this week to be the keynote speaker at the annual Ministry of Agriculture Annual Review. It was quite an experience! First of all, the report that the Ministry makes to its constituents is impressive. It covered all the different aspects of the Ministry's activities, gave an account of the prior year - what went well and what could use improvement and then went on to discuss the strategy that would be taken in each area. I cannot imagine if this were to happen in T & T. It certainly wouldn't be as mellow of a gathering. I would anticipate challenges, verbal attacks and more. And this was not that.

Does this mean that in St. Kitts and Nevis agriculture is perfect? Of course not. There are serious problems with monkeys eating crops, serious problems. There are dog attacks on livestock that are causing some farmers to turn away from farming. And more. But the entire gathering was respectful, of people's strengths and their weaknesses. The transparency, the accountability and the non-judgemental attitude in this meaning was eye-opening.

There were several things that became clear in the information that was shared.
1) St. Kitts and Nevis are doing well in meeting their food needs. They produce a wide diversity of food crops and are also heavily involved in meat production - cattle, sheep, goats and poultry. Not only were the numbers impressive, but in talking to farmers, visiting two farms on Nevis, and listening to the discussions, there is a good level of diversity in what is produced.

2) Collaboration is the norm. Several intergovernmental agencies/NGOs were invited to give mini reports - FAO, CARDI and IICA included. The Ministry of the Republic of China is very supportive of the agricultural sector and they also reported on their activities, and the audience had a range of representatives from affiliate ministries. How interesting that this vision does exist. That it is assumed that different sectors of society can work together in this way.

3) Farming is not easy to undertake as the sole income earning activity - most farmers have another job and the general impression that I got is that it is difficult to financially thrive with all income coming from the agricultural sector. The exceptions to this included two farmers that I visited on Nevis. They had figured out how to function within the farming and agricultural sector but they had excelled in vertical development. Both of them had a wide range of crops - at least 10 for one and 20 for the other from my observation, they both were involved in some processing - juice in both cases and jams and jellies in one case, and they both sold their produce directly to the public - one from the back of a truck and the other from an outlet that he has on his farm. Entrepreneurial leanings made a big difference in both cases.

4) There is a challenge in St. Kitts and Nevis with the aging of the farming population. Young people are not getting involved in farming. One of the farmers told me straight off that farming is slave work and that he greatly discouraged his children from participating in the agricultural sector. This lack of involvement in people under 40 is definitely a Caribbean wide problem.

and finally
5) Organic, biodynamic and permaculture based farming methods, despite a high interest shown during my trip, was not yet hooked in. I had multiple farmers - both at the workshop and in casual encounters after - express their interest in farming organically. But all of them said that they lacked the expertise. They deluged me with questions about the shop and about the interest in organic in Trinidad and Tobago. Definitely there is an opening there for some further interaction and education.

One area of activity seemed clearly as undeveloped as it is in the rest of the Caribbean and that is the delivery of food directly from farm to table. There does not seem to be one formalized approach to selling directly to hotels, customers, caterers and more. There is still a tendency to sell wholesale to vendors and to have minimal interaction with the customers who will be using the product. I spoke a bit about a CSA approach where each farmer or farming group would sell directly to a number of families but obviously with our historic approach for selling through middlemen we would need some refocusing to consider a different approach. I love middlemen and see them as necessary in the right context. But in order to maximize the benefit to the farmer it is helpful to have a high proportion of direct sales to the end consumer.

I can't wait to return or to have some farmers come from there to help us develop our culture of carrot planting, onion planting and white potato planting. They have certainly mastered it.