Treat banana industry as business – Dr. Eisenhower Douglas

bananaA major paradigm shift in the way farmers do business at it relates to bananas may be the solution to increasing Dominica’s banana productivity and exports.

That’s the suggestion coming out of a recent meeting called by the Ministry of Agriculture involving key stakeholders in the industry.

The meeting called on May 28th, 2013, was attended by representatives of WINFRESH, the company responsible for marketing Dominica’s bananas, the Dominica Agricultural Producers and Exporters Limited (DAPEX) and the Dominica National Fair Trade Organisation (DNFTO).

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Dr. Eisenhower Douglas, who chaired the high level meeting, said there is consensus that a more scientific approach is needed to sustain the island’s banana industry.

“We have much more competition now and the core message from WINFRESH is that at the production level, the changes that need to take place to match that at the market level are slow to take place.  We need to be much more scientific in production at the national level,” stated Douglas.

“We need to treat agriculture more like a business, as it relates to input, output, productivity, and yield per acre. We have a problem with the average age of farmers, we need to get more young energetic people in the industry,” Douglas said.

He continued, “We have a number of challenges that we have to concern ourselves with and seek to address and we want to do it in collaboration with DAPEX and WINFRESH because they have an important role to play”.

The Permanent Secretary added that in recent years, Dominica has experienced a significant decline in banana exports and the general view is that the country can do much better.

“WINFRESH still believe that Dominica can do much better in the area of bananas. Our peak year of banana exports was 1988, where we earned over a hundred million dollars in bananas. Now here we are in 2013, several years later, our banana exports is less than 10% of what it was at the peak” he explained.

Douglas said while there has been some fluctuations in the volume of exports over the years, the general trend in banana exports have been on the decline.

“WINFRESH believe we can do much better in banana exports,” he stated.

Douglas pointed to the continued call for DAPEX and the National Fairtrade Organization to work collaboratively in the interest of the industry.

“We also want to see DAPEX and FAIRTRADE work much more harmoniously together. There are certain institutional arrangements that have predisposed them to be at loggerheads in the past and we believe the time has come to bury the hatchet and work more collectively in the public interest,” he suggested.

The Government of Dominica recently launched the Banana Accompanying Measures (BAM) where EC$54 million from the European Union (EU) was injected into the island’s agriculture sector as a means of boosting that sector.

The (BAM) is a series of measures aimed at “strengthening the viability of agriculture and increasing its productivity and competitiveness”.

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17 Comments

  1. Rastar-Marn
    June 13, 2013

    Dr. Eisenhower Douglas thank you for your efforts and time it took you to achieve that PHD you claim to possess,,,

    Rasta how much acres of Land RBD left for allyou nuh,,,

    Action speaks louder than words yeh,,,

    Marn didn’t go to no advance studies for no PHD but lemme tell you someting dey may have forgoten to inform you when you were getting your PHD: A robust business plan will attract any investor and financier once they can see an attractive profit margin,,,

    All Dr. Eisenhower Douglas must do is revitalize the Hamstead Estate you know, and show dem man what your PHD is for,,,

    Doh come telling us what we already know show us what we think we know!!!

    Lead by example Dred nuff talk don’t get noffing done is action people need to see,,,

  2. Help
    June 12, 2013

    Why is Ian Douglas not making a big force about agriculture,. Doesn’t he know that his family built almost all their empire on agriculture. I missed Mike, Rosie, and their dad. They had their faults like all of us, but they helped the poor, and things were moving. I come from the central west cost and I know what I am talking about.

    This new members of government don’t know how to run a country, and is running the country like cow boys. I am about their age group, but I could see that they are little boys, using Dominica like their toy store and play ground. Do they have a heart, can they see and feel what is going on. They are just lovers of themselves, and using Dominicans like their donkeys. I am sad on the present and future of my country.

    I use to work for the government, but I had to run. Just working and not seeing my way. The whole world is hard, but I would prefer to be in Dominica. I want to come back, but my expenditure was more than my income, even though I was living a simple life with no vehicle and no TV. Lord please intercede.

    • Anonymous
      June 12, 2013

      They are usisng Dominicans like donkeys because Dominicans allow them to.

      The same way they organize big protest in minutes, over that priest where is that for these theiving politicans? Silence.

      Dominicans are getting exactly what they deserve.

  3. Francisco Telemaque
    June 12, 2013

    The word “Stakeholders” seems to have become synonymous among our people these days, since it is related to everything, even when people are going to the toilet ( or hang over a pit-hole), stakeholders are mentioned!

    Secondly, we here talks about the scientific approach to planting bananas, and other agricultural crops. Indeed there is a way to improve productivity, in a scientific way as ordained by God, and can be found in the old Testament of the Bible, and confirmed by modern day science.

    It is a simple scientific method, and that method is to simply rest the land for “five years.” The principal is simple this: A portion or as many archers of land cultivated for a period of five years, cultivation must stop, and the land rested for five years.

    After five years, the land is ready for re-cultivation, by then the used up nutrients will be replenish, and chemical fertilizers are not all that required: This is a Biblical fact, and confirmed scientifically.

    Our problem in Dominica, and the lack of production is this; for almost seventy years, all of the farm lands are under constant cultivation, without resting, in the event that we are to return to any viable agricultural industry, it appears to me that for every five years the land has been cultivated, in order to return to full productivity, we would have to rest the land for another seventy years.

    That may seems laughable, but it is a scientific fact. The evidence is in our face, notice no amount of fertilizer given to the plants these days, produces nothing significant, we see no significant change.

    Since we are talking since here is something scientific:

    The nature of the nutrient cycle helps determine soil fertility. Plant species with high nutrient demands prevent soluble compounds from being leached from the soil. The plant extracts nutrients, and then returns them to the soil in the form of plant litter. The constant two-way exchange between the plant, and the soil maintains a high concentration of nutrients in the soil.

    Plants species with low nutrient demands permit unused soil chemicals to be leached away, and themselves return few nutrients to the soil; thus the soil’s fertility declines.

    Eisenhower, can continue with his charismatic talk, that will not change anything, the only resolve is the resting of the land. If a man has twenty-five Acers of land under cultivation, al he has to do is stop cultivating 12.5 archers, for five years, I bet when he commences cultivation in the next five years, he will produce better crops.

    Francisco Etienne-Dods Telemaque

  4. Help
    June 12, 2013

    I would like to know who killed the banana industry? When I was growing up, that’s all I knew, and Guest Industry was the big boats coming to Dominica and the Caribbean for years. People were happy and independent, looking for this banana pay cheque. And guess what, we were paid in cash. Dominica was booming. Everyone was buying vans, even going to Guadeloupe to buy second hand ones.

    Please, why is central and south American countries selling banana and so many other produce in the USA , and Dominica cannot penetrate the markets, and Dominica is just a few hours away, WHY? What happened? and what is happening? Our youth had things to Do, they were not going In all those small other Caribbean countries and get in trouble. BRING BACK THE MILK, HONEY, CANE JUICE, COFFEE, CITRUS, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY THE BANANA INDUSTRIES.

    Tourism is important, but everything that comes from the ground is blessed, including we humans. Every week, there were trucks, vans and so on going to Roseau and Portsmouth, back and fourth. There were movements, and great energy in Dominica. No one had time to sit down and get fat, which is resulting in all kinds of diseases.
    If we want a healthy and wealthy community and country, we have to be moving in constructive ways.
    Please government, you are in some form of control, please help, our people are dying physically, mentally, spiritually and financially.
    HELP, HELP, HELP. Thank you.

  5. June 11, 2013

    There has been bad political management i Dominica

  6. Top cop
    June 11, 2013

    Famers were told to diversify it was the cry of dame ugenia Charles .but no one listened

  7. Jay
    June 11, 2013

    So Dr. Douglas,bananas were not a business before, when we earned over $100 million from them? What are you saying? Has it been only a hobby up till now? The simple fact is that we are not competitive in a global market and I for one do no want to see an industry subsidized that can not stand on its own two feet at the expense of the tax payer when farmers themselves are exempt from tax.If you are thinking of potential votes that is another story but please, do not confuse the two.

  8. Truth be told
    June 11, 2013

    Too late shall be the cry….

  9. Jahknow
    June 11, 2013

    One point that seems to have not been raised in this discussion on the failure of banana industry, is the role that the US has played in gaining access through the WTO to the European markets. Becuase the US is a key player in the fresh fruit markets, they ultimately can control the price. A similar situation occured with the sugar industry in Barbados and Jamaica in the late 70s and early 80s. It is highly unlikely that Dominica can return to the glory days of bananas. The answer really must be in diversification, not just growing different crops but focusing on the value added items of agricutural production. Right now banana puree is gaining in popularity world wide as a sweetener and thickener for the health concious in beverages ie smoothies.

  10. grell
    June 11, 2013

    banana is dead,how can we produce when the farmers are driving buses.dominicans are sitting on gold yet to lazy.

  11. Anonymous
    June 11, 2013

    Dr. Douglas the Banana Industry is/has been the only successful business model that the agriculture sector has enjoyed. The model was robust, dynamic and allowed farmers to benefit to the maximum. It had a solid track record of implementing a sound management system. So it has always been a business. Farmers have always gone into banana production with the sole aim of making MONEY and trust us Dominicans some made loads of money… truck loads to be exact!!! Sadly and unfortunately, it was based on a mono-culture system of crop production with high input usage (pesticides and fertilizers) and severe degradation of productive soils across the Dominican landscape. In 1988 every square inch of land that was available would have been dedicated to banana production because prices were right. Farmers were, for economic reasons, not interested in Diversification strategies, or they did not fully understand the concept based on lack of information or knowledge and may I say so not given green incentives to protect the most valuable resource of all – The Land and by extension our soils. As we move ahead with the BAM funding, we need to adopt and adapt this banana model and concentrate our energies on intensified diversification strategies. And trust us Dominicans, the talk about diversification has been around for decades, as a common day slogan but has it been given the technical and thus political impetus that it so deserves. Many years later in 2013, the problem is on what do we concentrate because the sector is in need of so much. Pest and disease has taken its fair share (citrus, avocado, bay oil, mango, paw-paw and the list goes on), abandoned farms is at its highest, our incentive schemes, be it to attract young persons or to encourage those that have remained on the land, are not that dynamic, and our management structure has not change to encompass the realities of modern agriculture. But there is signs of hope. Recently the Giraudel Flower Festival showed us that we are still resilient in Floriculture, our Pineapple production is on solid ground with little outbreak of P&D and then there are the minor neglected crops like cherry, guava, tamarind, etc). What about our medicinal and aromatic herbs, time that we give them the prominence that they deserve. What about the production of essential oils from the diverse floral species that we are blessed with in Dominica. Products that we could target for the health and wellness industry as well as the medical and agricultural industry. And all this lends to a value added and revitalized agricultural sector. In so doing we must diversify around the banana model and get into our new old tradition areas and stop thinking that a mono-culture approach to banana production will save the agricultural sector.

  12. jeanbawi
    June 11, 2013

    Most important is the improvement of the feeder roads leading to the agricultural area. The disrepair of these roads is a disgrace!

    • IPO
      June 11, 2013

      Banana is dirt cheap and volume is drving price down….farmers go into other crops

  13. Anonymous
    June 11, 2013

    most important, the feeder roads leading to the agricultural areas should be improved. The disrepair of these feeder roads is a disgrace.

    • IPO
      June 11, 2013

      Are you jeanbawi? Or Negbawi

      • June 11, 2013

        Jeanbawi that was producing most bananas, mellon, cucumbers in Dominica

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