According to the Inter-American Development Bank , The Bahamas is the fourth largest food importer in the Caribbean, behind only Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago , and Haiti. We have the second highest food import dependence ratio (total food imports/total food consumption) within the region at 0.92, which is 21 percentage points above the regional average. This poses food security concerns for our country and has a negative impact on our balance of trade.
The Bahamas Development provides access to financing for agricultural developing in crop production and animal husbandry as well as value added processing. The Bank is willing to work with farmers to tailor loans payments to harvest cycles and offer grace periods.
The Apiary Project began in 2018 in collaboration with the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), the Ministry of Grand Bahama and the Department of Cooperatives. The 16 week program trained young people in beekeeping and provided financing for small business startup. Of the 27 persons participated 25 were under 30 and 16 were women. The Bank ultimately provided funding totaling $182,561 to 7 members of the Program under soft lending terms that included: eased equity requirements; a one-year moratorium on loan payments without accrual of arrears; and waived normal collateral requirements.
Program participants have successfully organized themselves into a cooperative, which is registered and licensed as Grand Bahama Beekeepers Co-operative Society (GBCC) Limited. Additionally, 9 businesses have been formed and are involved in honey production (infused and standard organic), bee extraction, soap, jewelry, shoe polish, body butters and scrubs, bath salts, candle, muscle rub and lip balm production.
Participants from the Apiary project traveled to Barbados to participate in the Caribbean week of Agriculture where they presented a range of products.
Although the Grand Bahama program suffered a setback with Hurricane Dorian, the beekeepers are rebounding. The success of the Apiary program has provided a model for other projects.
This is a 5 year multi-agency collaborative effort to re-invigorate small ruminant farming involving
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