GARDEN-BASED LEARNING PROJECT:
I N S I D E T H I S I S S U E :
3 BahamArts 2010
4 Events of the First
Quarter
6 BNCA/CWA
7 Garden Memories
8 Photo Gallery
Volume 15
July - September Third Quarter 2010
The Garden-based Learning Project is sponsored by the Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. FAO was founded in 1945 with a
mandate to help developing countries to modernize and improve agriculture,
forestry and fisheries practices. Additionally, FAO:
• Leads international efforts to defeat hunger; and
• Works to ensure good nutrition for all people.
FAO Food and Nutrition Division works in collaboration with other
international and professional organizations to develop and promote
innovative strategies and materials that assist countries in planning and
implementing school-based nutrition education.
Since nutrition education has a great impact on the long-term development of
a country, FAO seeks to use this medium to achieve its mandate. Technical
assistance from FAO will complement the efforts of the Government of The
Bahamas to improve basic education and promote the health and nutrition of
school children as well as agricultural practices in the population.
The Garden-Based Learning (GBL) project promotes garden-based learning
which integrates food security and nutrition education across the curriculum in
an effort to improve the quality of life for primary school children and their
parents. The GBL Project encourages students to make healthy life style choices
which are facilitated by the students using the school garden as a natural
laboratory. This Project provides training for teachers as well as opportunities
for the development of educational materials.
Continued on page 2
WE’RE ON THE WEB, WWW.IICA.INT/BAHAMAS
IICA Bahamas
Today
At the CDB Vybzing Forum in May, Mr. Lionel Sands (Director of
Education) commended the Forum on “exposing students to the large number
of careers in agriculture”.
Page 2 IICA Bahamas Today
GARDEN-BASED LEARNING PROJECT cont.:
The Garden-Based Learning (GBL) Project is currently being implemented in grades four and five of nine pilot schools.
The pilot schools are on Andros, Grand Bahama and New Providence. The GBL Project seeks to:
1. promote good health and nutrition among primary school children;
2. promote the production and consumption of a wide variety of fruits and vegetables at school, the home and
in the community;
3. strengthen food security and nutrition education for primary school students;
4. integrate garden-based learning (GBL) concepts across the curriculum;
5. design and produce innovative curriculum and resource materials that will encourage behavioral change in
school children, and by extension their parents;
6. engender positive attitudes in students toward careers in agriculture.
It is envisioned that the GBL Project will raise the awareness of students, their parents, the school and the wider
community of the linkages of lifestyle choices and chronic non-communicable diseases like diabetes and high blood
pressure that are on the increase in The Bahamas. It is hoped that what they learn from the GBL Project will empower
them to make healthy lifestyle choices that would lead to healthier more productive lives.
We are appreciative of the provision of technical assistance by Camelta Barnes, Senior Public Health Nutritionist of the
Ministry of Health in helping us achieve the goals of this Project. We have greatly benefitted from the technical
assistance from Janice Albert, Nutrition Officer, and Carmen Dardano, Food and Nutrition Officer, both of whom are in
the FAO Rome Office and from Dr. Pauline Samuda, Nutrition Assessment Consultant, and FAO Jamaica. Mr. Hamblin
Newbold, Acting Assistant Director of Education for Science and Technology is the FAO Project Coordinator. Mrs.
Patrice Green, Administrative Assistant for Agriculture Science has given technical assistance in the area of
Agriculture. Dr. Karen St. Cyr, Coordinator of Regional Project serves as the National Curriculum Consultant and
organizer for school-based activities.
Hugh Campbell Primary Garden Based Learning Program (Grand Bahama)
IICA Bahamas Today Page 3
Bahamas Agricultural and Industrial Corporation (BAIC) and Ministry of Tourism and Aviation will be hosting the 13th BahamArts Festival at the Heritage Village, Arawak Cay (Fish Fry Site) during the last weekend of October 29th – 31st 2010. They are planning to make this event bigger and better than previous years as we reflect on the achievements and developments throughout the years of the Handicraft and Souvenir Industry throughout the nation. The Theme for the Festival is “Endless Possibilities.” The Festival will incorporate the Industry of Arts, Crafts, Souvenirs, Clothing, Accessories, Jewelry, along with Packaged and Processed Foods. The Festival’s purpose is to bring together artisans and artists throughout The Bahamas to create a ‘Craft Village’, highlighting indigenous Bahamian-made products. An array of beautiful products will be displayed throughout the one hundred (100) booths during the three (3) day event. As in past festivals, the ‘Best Booth Competition’ will again be held. This year we expect participation from 30 Family Island Handicraft Associations which have been formed as a result of BAIC’s intense handicraft training initiatives throughout the Family Islands over the past three (3) years.
BahamArts 2010:
Summer Student Program 2010:
The youth of the nation can play an active role in the economy as young entrepreneurs and improve the image of Agriculture, to create employment and positively affect our food production. The IICA Bahamas Office has successfully completed another summer student internship program during the month of August. The first summer student program was held in the summer of 2007 with two graduating high school students (Michelle Davis from Government High School [GHS] and Kippling Thompson from North Andros High School). The targeted strategy is to attract promising Agriculture students for summer internship. The program is designed to expose the candidate to all options available for career planning and advancement, using existing successful models in The Bahamas. This year, the students were Nahassah Flowers, Jr. (C. V. Bethel Senior High School) and Deon D. Gibson (second year student at the University of Agriculture in Havana, Cuba). This year’s program was implemented in conjunction with the Bahamas Cooperative League Ltd. (BCLL). The League has an interest in our youth via their youth cooperatives. Youth cooperatives provide an opportunity for students to learn how to use money wisely, learn the importance of saving and acquire the discipline of running a successful business. They also have a scholarship to College of the Bahamas for Agriculture. We thank the League for partnering with IICA. Please check out the information and photos from the Summer Student Program on our website at: http://www.iica.int/Eng/regiones/caribe/bahamas/summer/Pages/default.aspx
“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically.
Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Page 4 IICA Bahamas Today
The next Agriculture Think Tank will feature Agribusiness. Mr. Lester Stuart from BAIC will speak to this subject on November 3,
2010. The Agriculture Think Tank will be held at the Finn Damtoft Agriculture Library from 4-5pm. BAIC will host the Agribusiness Possibilities roundtable on November 4th 7:00pm at the National Centre For the Performing Arts (Shirley Street). See you there!
Events for the first quarter:
July 10 – Bahamas Independence Day
July 12-16 – Office visit Mr. Robert Reid
July 29 – Agriculture Think Tank – Poultry in The Bahamas by Justin Taylor
July 26 – August 27 – Summer Student Internship Program
August 2-6 – Third Forum of Young Leaders in Agriculture (University of Nebraska)
August 2 – Emancipation Day Holiday
August 3 – BAIC Soils Workshop
August 5 – BHA Board Meeting
August 16-19 – Agriculture Teacher’s Workshop
August 22-27 – Small Ruminant Week
August 24-25 – Dehydration Workshop at GRAC
August 26 – Agriculture Think Tank – Summer Student Final Presentation
August 30 – Back-to-School
September 8 – International Literacy Day
September 8-10 – Caribbean Regional Meeting in Guyana
September 21 – Belize Independence Day
September 28-29 – CADIAC Workshop in Trinidad
September 30 – Agriculture Think Tank Evaluation Day
IICA Bahamas Today Page 5
Garden Tips:
Grow nutritious foods that are easy to grow. If you are a first-timer, start with 2-3 crops.
Use of Manure or Compost can be added to fertilize the soil.
Watering your plants - Rainwater collected from roofs will help save on domestic water.
Covering with fine mesh (e.g. insect-proof greenhouse mesh) to prevent mosquito breeding, is critical.
Vegetables need adequate space to develop properly and prevent conditions for disease
buildup. Follow recommended distances listed on commercial seed packets.
Crops such as tomato and cucumbers are supported using stakes or trellises. This saves on ground space, helps fruit quality and reduces disease-conditions within the crop canopy.
Crop groups grown in the same piece of land should be changed routinely to help avoid
soil pest and disease buildup, make best use of fertilizer and build soil fertility.
Source: RADA, Jamaica, www.rada.gov.jm
Dr. Selima Hauber (Lucayan Tropical): “I remember starting a flower garden during a high school summer break. I actually expanded a garden that my mother started. I remember becoming addicted to it such that any extra money I had was spent on buying flowering plants. Trips to the nurseries and garden centres were a big treat. I became a permanent fixture working the garden in the afternoons and it was so beautiful that people would honk their horns as they drove by. A few people actually stopped and said how much they enjoyed the garden as they drove by on the busy main road. Ornamental horticulture became my first love. It was only after a couple decades later that I returned home and ran a small vegetable farm that I came to enjoy vegetable gardening equally as much.”
Garden Tips and Garden Memories:
Ms. Louise Bullard (BahamArts 2010 Honoree, age 98): “We made out of straw the Shoulder basket
for the field – grew peas, cane, corn, bean and okra. If you couldn’t farm, you couldn’t live.”
Page 6 IICA Bahamas Today
Thirty rural women micro-entrepreneurs from 12 countries across the Caribbean region have benefited from an important training exercise that will allow them to exploit business opportunities in an effort to increase production and productivity. The five-day workshop, held in Saint Lucia from June 21-25, 2010, was facilitated by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), under a UNIFEM-funded project entitled “Capacity Building for the Caribbean Network of Rural Women Producers (CANROP)”. Participants were members of the executive committees of national chapters of the CANROP’s from Antigua, The Bahamas (The Bahamas National Craft Association [BNCA] is a member through the Bahamas Agricultural & Industrial Corporation [BAIC]), Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago. Mrs. Martha Smith (BNCA President and member of the Eleuthera Handicraft Association) and Mrs. Christine Johnson (Harbour Island Craft Association [HICA] Vice-President) represented The Bahamas at the workshop. The women were exposed to an intensive and interactive Train the Trainer exercise in entrepreneurship, financial management, strategic planning, social skills and networking. The skills honed at the workshop will empower the women to effectively represent themselves in the ever-evolving business and social environments and enable them to deal more positively with change to meet global requirements. Those trained at the workshop are expected to maintain their role as leaders who will go back to their respective groups in the countries and transfer the knowledge and skills at the local levels. Mrs. Smith comments that “the networking was great with the other participants. We learned a lot from each other – we have things in common and things that are different. The presenters were very knowledgeable on their subjects and allowed ample time for questions. They also took suggestions for improvements. Overall, the workshop was an inspiration to all who attended – we got good information!”
Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Johnson at the CANRWP meeting
BNCA participate in the CANROP Workshop:
Caribbean Week of Agriculture 2010 in Grenada:
Conceptualized by IICA, the CWA serves as a facility for increasing the prominence of agriculture and rural life, so that key decision makers would be better able to acknowledge their importance to the economy, social infrastructure and environmental stability. The CWA also presents an opportunity for stakeholders to forge a common vision for the repositioning of agriculture on the national agendas in the Caribbean.
Check out the link on-line for more information about the event: http://www.cwa.gov.gd/
IICA Bahamas Today Page 7
Garden Memories:
Ida Rose (Seclusion’s Best – “Eat naturally from the Earth’s plants”): “My dad (Elder Thompson) could make a plant grow in a rock hole – everything he touched would just spring! No fertilizer was used back then. He would cut the bush, let it dry and then put it around the plants. He also used dried seaweed and ashes (from the cut trees/wood stove) to keep away the insects as well. The farm was on Current Island, Eleuthera and the home garden was through Quakoo Street. Our yard was always in season – okra, beets, watermelon, hog plum, sour sop, sappodilly, seagrape and avocado pears.”
Anthony Plakaris (IICA Bahamas): “My Father had several trees in his yard including: hog plum, goat pepper, sour sop, pink grapefruit, white-gold coconuts, macadamia nut and peach.”
Extract from: Annual Report of the Board of Agriculture 1917-1918: Vegetables Generally More than the usual quantity of seed has been ordered, and distributed. “War Gardens” are to be seen on every hand replacing the flower gardens of previous years. The seasons have been good for many kinds of produce, and the yield plentiful. Agricultural Education Some excellent specimens of vegetables have been sent in from the school gardens for competition. From reports the schools are doing good work in teaching the theory of Agriculture and its application. Three additional prizes have been offered by the Board for the best individual plots kept by school children either at school or at home. (Source: Department of Archives)
Tim Hauber (Lucayan Tropical): “I remember working along with my grandmother in her summer garden, where she grew plants from seed, harvested, ate and preserved much of the product for the long winter when we could not grow in the garden. I learned from her to respect the mystery of nature and that working the ground is an honourable task. I want to pass this experience along to my son.”
Myrtle Munroe (Straw/Shell/Coconut Crafter): “I grew up in Acklins and everyone farmed. There was no refrigeration so we made jam (over the wood fire) and preserved food with salt.”
Page 8 IICA Bahamas Today
Photo Gallery: Summer Student Program 2010 (Nassau,
Bahamas)
Centreville Professional Plaza, 8th Terrace & Collins Avenue, Suite 5,
P. O. Box SS-6205, Nassau, Bahamas.
Phone: 242-325-8800/2
Fax: 242-325-8803
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.iica.int/Bahamas
Summer Students Nahassah Flowers, Jr. and Deon
Gibson) visit with Mr. Ian Goodfellow at
Goodfellow Farms, Mount Pleasant).
Tim Hauber shows the use of Rockwool at Lucayan
Tropical (Airport Industrial Park).
Students visit Claridge Farms (Cowpen Road) with
Dr. Alvarez and Mr. Thompson.
Students listen to OAS representative, Mrs.
Phillip.
Students visit with Rochelle at Atlantis
Landscaping (Paradise Island).
Students tour Maillis Farms, Adelaide
Village.