Nassau, Bahamas — Bahamas Agricultural and Industrial Corporation’s distribution of bud wood fruit trees to farmers continued last weekend with material going to six islands.
Several varieties of sugar apple, sour sop, mango, avocado and guava went to Abaco, Long Island, Andros, Grand Bahama, Eleuthera, and Exuma.
“This project is an attempt to assist farmers by adding to their mix of fruit trees,” said BAIC assistant general manager for agriculture, Arnold Dorsett.
“This is an attempt to bring back some of the native varieties that we have grown accustomed to.”
BAIC is identifying farmers who have demonstrated interest in fruit tree production to take care of the new varieties.
“These will be available for bud wood, for persons who want to bud trees of different varieties,” he said.
“Hopefully we will be able to diversify our variety of fruit trees. In another few years this will be a very big project.
“Once farmers start multiplying these fruit trees, they can expand as much as they want.
“The bud wood is here and with the proper grafting techniques they can rapidly multiply improved varieties of fruit trees.”
This comes on the heels of another BAIC initiative – using the Sweet Cayenne to improve the variety of pineapples produced in The Bahamas.
“The sweet cayenne is a variety which we are importing,” said Mr Dorsett. “We are trying to have more of these produced locally so that we can replace some of the imports. We are confident that these pineapples will grow well in The Bahamas.”
Gladstone Thurston
Bahamas Information Services
