Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley (second from left); Minister of Maritime Affairs and the Blue Economy, Kirk Humphrey; and MP for the area, Neil Rowe, share a word with Buela Chapman, one of the first fish vendors in Pile Bay, while her granddaughter Katrina and daughter Juliet, who were also in the trade, look on.
The new facility also features this gazebo and several benches for persons to enjoy the scenery.
Fisheries upgrade
A wave of modernisation is hitting this island’s fisheries industry as infrastructural upgrades, new technologies and an initiative to aid fishermen in purchasing boats are now all on stream.
While addressing a ceremony for the reopening of yet another upgraded fishing facility, this time at Pile Bay, Minister of Maritime Affairs and the Blue Economy Kirk Humphrey outlined several steps taken to address the sustainability of the sector.
One includes the placement of 20 FADS – fishing aggregating devices – in the island’s waters, so that “the fish will gather there and fishermen will know where they can go get fish and that is transformative”.
“We are also working on what we call a tuna project that will allow us to catch the same amount of tuna or more. But if we loin the tuna in Barbados, we get more value for the tuna. So that fishermen will make more money without making it in an unsustainable way; so we are also doing that. We are also looking at giving fishermen access to vessels through a lease-to-own arrangement which we have already started, and I have already built the first boat and you all will see it very soon. We are going to make it a very modern vessel,” he stated.
Humphrey noted that all of the fish markets renovated so far in the past three years including Tent Bay, Oistins, Bridgetown, Speightstown, and Pile Bay, all have facilities allowing them to meet phytosanitary standards. This, he assured, will also be included in those facilities yet to be renovated at Paynes Bay, Weston and Consett Bay.
“You will be pleased to see that we have had the kind of facilities that will allow us to meet the phytosanitary standards that you are always concerned about. So we have elevated Barbados to a position where in any of our markets, you will see that we are using top quality materials on the countertops. Three years ago for most of the markets, none of them were in a position to allow them to meet phytosanitary standards. Now the markets we have fixed, all of them are able to meet these,” he said.