Aug. 1, 2007 — The territory's food security was a hot topic Wednesday as the Agriculture Department made its obligatory appearance before the Senate Finance Committee's budget hearings.
"I read there's only three months worth of food supply in the Virgin Islands," Sen. Liston Davis said.
Several people noted that should there be a terrorism incident, it's unlikely food could be shipped between islands, much less imported from the mainland as under normal circumstances.
Agriculture Commissioner Louis E. Petersen Jr. repeatedly told the senators that developing the territory's agriculture industry was his priority. The first task is to grow enough food to feed residents, he said, then he could begin to think about export.
The lack of an agriculture policy is one of the problems facing the department, Sen. Basil Ottley said. Concurring with Petersen's remarks about food security, Ottley said food security means homeland security.
Petersen presented a fiscal year 2008 budget of $5 million, with $3.4 million coming from the General Fund. A total of $20,000 comes from the Internal Revenue Matching Fund, $90,000 from other local funds and $1.6 million from the federal government. This represents a 10- percent increase over the previous year.
While Petersen listed the federal funding in his budget, he said he's sure the department won't get the full amount, given that the federal government is slashing funding.
The department is also on tap to receive $100,000 under the miscellaneous section of Gov. John deJongh Jr.'s budget to address drought conditions.
At issue for several senators was the $2.5 million the previous Legislature appropriated under the agriculture sustainability act. Petersen said he has had trouble getting the money out of the Office of Management and Budget.
"OMB has wickedly held a heavy hand over you and denied you the $2.5 million," Sen. James Weber said. The money is sitting in the insurance-guaranty fund, so there's no reason why OMB shouldn't release it, he said. Weber urged Petersen to send his staff to the OMB office to find out why the department can't get the money.
Should the $2.5 million come through, Petersen said he plans to use it for training, infrastructure improvements and staff training.
Petersen, who has been on the job just over five months, said he faces plenty of challenges in bringing the department up to snuff. He cited abysmal record keeping that has his staff out conducting inventory of local-government land under the jurisdiction of the Agriculture Department. He said he expected that inventory to be done by the end of the fiscal year.
Sen. Neville James noted that the agriculture sustainability act also includes $500,000 a year to develop an agriculture-marketing program. Many parcels of land leased to purported farmers is not being used or used for purposes other than farming, he said.
The department needs to make significant infrastructure improvements, James added. The West Indian Co. Ltd. is donating two 900,000-gallon tanks used first to store fuel and then as warehouses. Petersen said he's asked WICO to move them to Bordeaux, where the farmers need water.
While the tanks are free, Petersen said, it will cost $200,000 each to put them back together at Bordeaux, plus another $17,000 each to fill in the holes made for doors and windows.
Petersen said he's trying to develop other partnerships, including one with The Preserve at Botany Bay development to provide piping and desalinized water from its project to the Bordeaux tanks.
"We are trying to avoid trucking water," he said.
The department also needs to get the farmers to buy into the idea of farming as a profitable business and to learn to keep records, Petersen said.
"The farmers need to step up," added Sen. Terrence "Positive" Nelson, who chaired the meeting. “They ain't farming, they're gardening.”
As with most budget hearings, some interesting tidbits came to light. Petersen said bees recently died on St. Croix because someone sprayed pesticides. The pesticides drifted to the bee hives and killed the bees. Nelson added a story about a thief on St. Croix who chopped the leg off of a live cow to get the meat.
Attending the meeting as committee members were Sens. Weber, James, Davis, Nelson, Carlton Dowe, Juan Figueroa Serville and Ronald Russell. Ottley is not a committee member. Sen. Carmen Wesselhoft also put in a brief appearance.
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