Farmers Advocate for Increased Renewable Energy Investment to Reduce Costs

By Shamar Blunt

Farmers need a bigger slice of the renewable energy pie.

This was the plea made by Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Barbados Agricultural Society (BAS) James Paul in an interview with Barbados TODAY.

Although he agreed with the government’s plan to establish a second feed manufacturer sometime in 2024, Paul contended that a significant amount of renewable energy needed to be chanelled into the industry to reduce the excessive energy costs which farmers have to bear when trying to keep livestock cool during the hotter-than-normal periods.

“We hear talk from the Barbados Light and Power that soon from now they would have reached their maximum capacity for renewable energy options on the grid. I really think that farmers and farm operations should be given preference in terms of filling that space. Once [farmers] can reduce their costs of production, it means that it translates to cheaper prices for the product, [and] farmers are then able to keep their costs down,” Paul said.

The BAS head insisted that it was better to give these renewable energy opportunities to farmers than “people who basically have no connection to the industry whatsoever”.

“A lot of them are not going to produce any agricultural commodity so they are not contributing to food security,” he added.

Barbados has been experiencing extremely high temperatures in recent months.

In September, Barbados recorded a temperature of 34.2 degrees Celsius, breaking the 18-year record for that month, which was 33.1 degrees Celsius, set in 2005.

Paul stressed that farmers have for a long time been trying their best to protect their product, despite the adverse climate changes experienced in Barbados over the last few years.

However, he said, a bigger investment in the green energy space would be needed sooner rather than later

“If you have a conventional pen, the only thing you can try to do is to make sure you have adequate fans to cool down the birds and, of course, there are plenty of water bays. Farmers usually do that, but then you have situations where it can get even hotter.

“Farmers would do best practices, they would do what needs to be done. The problem is that there is a limit to what can be done because the temperatures that they are battling, they are vigorous, they are all over, and it’s just one of those things,” Paul said.

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