by MARIA BRADSHAW

LAST YEAR it was a glut of tomatoes that troubled St Lucy farmer Arthur Smith. This year it is onions that he can't get sold.

Smith has 250 bags of onions stored in his bond at Barrows, St Lucy and he estimates that his field will produce another 1 000 bags.

Last year he gave away 10 000 pounds of tomatoes. This time he is planning to dump the onions if he can't find a buyer or buyers by monthend.

"If Government is really serious about farmers producing anything for consumption by the country it has to ensure that we have a market share first and foremost. I am not happy about this. I have enough problems with producing," he said.

Smith charged that people were importing onions duty-free and selling them to supermarkets thereby causing a glut.

"The manufacturers are bringing in onions cheaply from Europe. People might say the ones that are imported are cheaper than the ones we are producing but we do not get the subsidy or grants that those farmers get. Other markets are getting farm support and it will be difficult for us to sell our commodity at the same price as the imported ones," he lamented.

DAILY NATION investigations revealed that while a bag of imported onions sell for $35, a bag of locally produced ones sold for $55.

"There is an onion programme going on in Barbados for years and it is co-ordinated by the Barbados Agriculture Development Marketing Corporation and once every week an inspector was visiting my farm to see what I was doing. But thousands of bags of onions still get imported here and that should not be."