Acting Supervisor at the Cades Bay Pineapple Agricultural Station, Mr. Ricky Christopher said that he and his team are committed to ensure that the ‘Antigua Black Pineapple’ remains a priority amid the Ministry of Agriculture’s renewed efforts to drive food nutrition and security in Antigua and Barbuda.
Speaking to Christopher during a recent visit to the agricultural station, he underscored the importance of preserving the signature fruit, which is known worldwide as the sweetest and rarest variety.
‘It is our national fruit; we have claimed that this fruit is the best, it’s actually the sweetest pineapple in the world; lots of tourists come here just to see it and local demand is also high. Rather than importing inferior pineapple fruits we have it here, we should capitalize on it, maybe it should be at a point where can even export it, so agriculture can contribute more to the GDP.”
Although the Cades Bay agricultural station had moved to accommodate the growing of other crops such as potato and cassava in recent times, Christopher noted that the primary focus at the facility, known as the Home of the Antigua Black Pineapple, will be on pineapple production.
During the covid-19 pandemic where food security is paramount the importance of the commodity is even more apparent.
“I believe here is unique because we just focus just primarily on the Antigua Black Pineapple and put the emphasis on the other stations to contribute to the other commodities because of the importance of the said crop.”
The Ministry of Agriculture according to the Acting Director of Agriculture, Mr. Gregory Bailey, as part as the COVID-19 Response to the threats to food security, has embarked on a number of activities to ramp up crop production and agricultural stations are also included in this expansion programme.
Attention is also being placed on sourcing heavy duty equipment from private and public sector sources, some of which have already been placed into operation while negotiations continue.
Much of these operations will contribute to up scaling the availability of water for production purposes, as sustainable pineapple production locally requires reliable access to water, considering our local climatic variability and the relative long life cycle of the crop
According to Mr. Christopher, the Antigua Black takes approximately two years to mature- from planting to harvesting and in about a year and a half, once the plant reaches the suitable size that can support fruiting, each of the plants is hormone.
The workers will apply the hormone manually inside the heart of the plant.
In about a month after, each one of the plant that was hormone would start to flower.
Some 10 – 12 acres are under currently production at Cades Bay in different stages and the entire compound is about 40 acres.
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