Maud Vere Bradford, the Senior Research Officer at the Dunbars Agricultural Station, said that the move to relocate staff to make way for a government housing project could have major implications for the scientific research that is conducted at the station.
Yesterday, workers at the facility alongside union representatives met with officials in the Ministry of Agriculture over plans to move the workers into a new space as the government has begun excavating the area.
The destruction in the agricultural station has seen the uprooting of crops like cassava, cherries tomatoes, and sweet potatoes.
Bradford, who did not personally attend the meeting, but has knowledge of what was likely discussed, expressed that workers were caught off-guard with the move and needed more clarity on the contingency plan by the Ministry of Agriculture.
She said that since March 2023 she had written to the Permanent Secretary and Director of Agriculture for clarity on the Cabinet decision, and has yet to receive a response.
She explained that much of the work conducted at Dunbars was more than growing crops for public consumption, and held regional importance for food security—which is sometimes done in collaboration with regional and international organisations such as Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI).
“As a result of a regional study, the location was selected because it has soil types that any crop can be studied there to give you data on the agro-ecological area, and which crop would be suited to grow where.
“Further, the station lies in the limestone area, but it has soil of clay, loam and, to some extent, silt, and it can be used to do studies to show how crops can perform in that area with that soil type,” she explained.
She also told Observer that due to the sudden excavation, many experiments planned for the area, due to its unique soil makeup, will need to be relocated.
Bradford explained that, “if it’s a policy decision, as a technician, we will have to find alternatives. Just this [Tuesday] morning, I spoke with one of the representatives from CARDI, where we have a field to put down an experiment with five varieties of sweet potatoes, which will be done in the three equal ecological zones—the limestone, the central and the volcanic.
“At the moment — and the officer indicated to me that it will take six months — what I’m saying, if the policy decision is that we have to move, we really don’t have much options.”
An example of the implications attached to the government’s action could be finding a new location for the planting of a unique strain of cotton planted in Antigua at the Dunbars Station which, in 2019, was lauded by the government as playing a major role in agricultural development.
The work of the Cotton Division, which oversees this programme, is conducted at two field stations—the Central Cotton Station and the Dunbars facility which are both located in the Friars Hill Road area.
The Senior Research Officer said she was not seeking to blame the Cabinet for its decision, but added that had there been more communication and consultation throughout the various Divisions, the implementation of the policy could have been better executed.
“Had this decision been handed down to me and my juniors, we would have executed it without all of this; we may have said ‘okay, rather than you ploughing up the ground in December, let’s plough in June or November’ and I think that would have happened,” she said.
She added later that, “maybe if we had more consultations because it’s clear with the whole thing, I’m now realising that persons are only realising now, the importance and the significance of these stations.
“So, it’s just unfortunate that whoever the power may be did not take the time out to fully understand the importance of these stations.”
She further revealed that they have already lost over 1,000 coconut palms, thereby losing “valuable tissue culture planting material”.
It is expected that a walkthrough of the area will be conducted at 8am today where a damage assessment will be undertaken about each of the eight fields.
Additionally, as part of this development, the three weather stations at the Dunbars facility—two of which are managed by the national Met Office and the other jointly managed by CARDI and the Dunbars staff—will now be required to be relocated.
However, this is not as simple as picking up equipment and moving to a different area.
According to Dale Destin, Director of the Antigua Meteorological Services, one of the stations was placed there specifically to conduct an experiment by the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH) and the Agriculture Ministry, using international donor funds.
The results were to benefit other Caribbean countries in the region’s quest for climate resilience and food security and the Director said the agency does not have the resources to relocate the stations nor can stations be taken up overnight.
He added that they learned of the clearing on Saturday and have not been contacted by the Housing Ministry with more information.
Meanwhile, Bradford reiterated the value of Dunbars to agricultural research, including storing and recording genetic data of different strains of seeds which can adapt better to Caribbean climate as well as climate change.
She stated that “you have to do research for adaptability of varieties- a farmer may bring in a seed and he may want to test it there to see if it can grow there.
“It also acts as a gene bank — when you collect vital germ plasm, such as the local corn, the local eggplant, okra — and from time to time, you would do trials to replicate it into the field; so it’s an important aspect and all the islands in the Caribbean have research institutions,” the Senior Research Officer said.
