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20,000 Backyard Farming Kits For Grand Bahama

Basil Pearce proudly displays the harvest from his backyard farm.

According to the minister, the country imports $600 m worth of food and fresh flowers. If the Bahamas can begin to grow and produce these things, he believes it could, in fact, shave off $200m of the $600m spent on imports.

By Denise Maycock
Tribune Freeport Reporter
Aug 28, 2020

Excerpt:

Minister of Agriculture Michael Pintard is on target to distributing 20,000 backyard kits on Grand Bahama as part of an “aggressive” backyard farming programme recently launched by the government.

The idea, he said, is to help Bahamians cut costs on their food purchases by growing their own produce.

Backyard kits were provided to all five constituencies on the island. Yesterday, Mr Pintard, the MP for Marco City, distributed kits to his constituents at his Constituency Office on Pioneer’s Way.

He said he was very excited to be revitalizing a programme started by former Agriculture Minister Larry Cartwright.

“We expect really by the end of September or early October that we would have probably distributed 20,000 kits; we have 10,000 on the island and another 10,000 that will be in shortly, and our goal is to continue to order the kits,” he told The Tribune.

Beverley Cooper was very happy about her backyard farming kit. “I am so grateful for this because I started doing little farming already, I started growing watermelon, and now with this kit, I will be growing all kinds of vegetables. I am glad for what Mr Pintard is doing right now,” she said. “It is very well worth it.”

Read the complete article here.