Lots of ink has been used recently over concerns about the world running out of food, and in The Bahamas there are concerns about running out of rice.
One of the reasons grocery store shelves in The Bahamas were running low on rice was related to price controls, but that did not prevent The Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Larry Cartwright coming to every Bahamians rescue and suggesting that we would simply have to grow our own rice.
This prompted your not so humble blogger to do some research on the Internet.
The first web site that appeared when I searched Google on “how to grow rice” was this site… explaining to kids how to grow rice in a bucket.
Assuming that was not enough to feed us, I decided to click on the second link on Google’s search results that took me to this page… from Wikipedia on “Rice”.
It turns out that soil quality is important. And our soil quality is very poor, whereby in years past, our subsistence farmers could not survive and had to work at other jobs, construction or fishing etc to take care of their families.
Wikipedia goes on to state:
“Rice cultivation is well-suited to countries and regions with low labour costs and high rainfall, as it is very labour-intensive to cultivate and requires plenty of water for cultivation. Rice can be grown practically anywhere, even on a steep hill or mountain. Although its species are native to South Asia and certain parts of Africa, centuries of trade and exportation have made it commonplace in many cultures.”
“The traditional method for cultivating rice is flooding the fields with or after setting the young seedlings. This simple method requires sound planning and servicing of the water damming and channeling, but reduces the growth of lesser robust weed and pest plants and reduces vermin that has no submerged growth state. However, with rice growing and cultivation the flooding is not mandatory, whereas all other methods of irrigation require higher effort in weed and pest control during growth periods and a different approach for fertilizing the soil.”
I’m not suggesting that Rice cannot be grown in The Bahamas, but if one were to pay attention to the two quotes above, it would appear The Bahamas is not ideally suited to growing rice.
Bahamian Politicians seem to get an over powering urge that they can solve every perceived problem, by just talking about them.
In the case of rice, it might have been better if Mr. Cartwright had been enjoying a mouth full of Bahamian peas and rice when he was asked about the supposed rice shortages we were experiencing, so he would have had more time to think about us being self sufficient, before speaking.
Rick, it’s actually a myth that our soil quality is very poor, and it’s also a myth that our subsistence farmers had to resort to other jobs to feed themselves. Go to any subsistence farm anywhere in the Family Islands today and you’ll see the surpluses created (Larry Cartwright’s from Long Island, where people still feed themselves — and their families in Nassau and Freeport too — even in semi-arid parts of the island). Our soil quality, according to geographer Neil Sealy and others, is in fact very rich — in spots. The problem is that our soil isn’t very deep, only one or two inches at most, and that many of our islands don’t have large water tables that can sustain single-crop farming.
The Bahamas has always been able to produce subsistence farming — Bahamians with access to land have never starved. What our land is not suited to is any kind of cash crop. What’s known as extensive farming methods — derogatorily termed “slash-and-burn” farming — is what works best in our lands, and the long-term pothole farming that is the most common adaptation of this.
I doubt we can grow our own rice commercially. But we can feed ourselves more readily than we do, as long as people are willing to farm in the old way, and adjust their diets to what we used to eat a generation or two ago — grits, fish, root vegetables, peas and beans, etc. We may not be able to provide ourselves with the staples we have become accustomed to eating — rice, wheat, etc — are probably not within our capacity to produce, as they are the product of intensive farming techniques, which our land can’t sustain. What we can produce is specialty crops, like red and yellow corn.
Sorry to rant, but that our soil is not fertile is a lie that we were taught in school and it’s just that. We need to stop judging ourselves and our country by other people’s standards and learn what is relevant to us.
It runs me hot.
Thanks for stopping by Nicolette:
So you agree with the premise that we cannot grow our own rice then?
It’s a pipe dream that we can feed ourselves as well I’m sorry to say.
But why should it be necessary in the first place?
A good rant every now and then is fine, but who’s standards should we judge ourselves by? I often see you referring to work of people outside The Bahamas?
I don’t particularly want to return to the life my forefathers had that’s for sure.
In Bahamian Landscapes Sealey says: “Fertility in a soil is measured in terms of its content of chemical bases …Bahamian soils are invariably deficient (and) so poorly developed that in a normal classification they would either be left out, or put in a separate azonal or immature category.”
He concludes that “outside of traditional shifting cultivation Bahamian soils are rarely used in their natural state. They are poor in nutrients and require heavy fertilisation. Mechanised agriculture is restricted by the shallowness of the soil and the frequent outcrops of bare rock.”
He goes on to discuss rainfall patterns and water resources in the Bahamas, which are scarce as my recent article on this subject discussed ( http://www.bahamapundit.com/2008/05/bahamian-water.html#more )
In The Bahamas Today Sealey writes that Bahamian soils are extremely thin and patchy, but notes that agriculture can be accommodated by breaking up the limestone surface to create an artificial soil that can be irrigated and fertilised.
Large-scale farming in the Bahamas has never been successful – beginning with the failed loyalist plantations.
What we had back in the day was subsistence farming. But it is far more economical and practical today to import our food. Many staples cannot be produced in the Bahamas (like rice), and we have a small labour force with no interest in farming. Heavy irrigation is required, soils are thin and rarely fertile, the ground must be specially prepared at great cost and much fertiliser must be used.
While all these factors do not prevent agriculture, they do make it much more difficult and costly.
Modern agriculture is also a complex business, requiring land, labour, transportation, packing and marketing facilities. There are big issues in all of these areas – that’s why local food processors like Albury’s and Sawyer’s have remained cottage industries.
Finally, I don’t see how your advice to “to stop judging ourselves and our country by other people’s standards” applies in this case.