Barbados’ cotton industry needs more hands and more lands to surpass the BDS$1 million in revenue it could generate this year.
Chief executive officer of Exclusive Cottons of the Caribbean Inc., Adlai Stevenson, said they needed pickers and more than 300 acres for the production of West Indian sea island cotton, but only 90 were planted, and he linked this to the overall decline in agriculture.
“Cotton is planted as a rotation crop to sugar, and sugar production has fallen. We are seeing [this] across the board, not only in cotton, but other output. We are seeing the impact of a fall-off in sugar production,” Stevenson said.
“If the sugar industry expands production, they will need to rotate occasionally out of sugar. Cotton would be a beneficiary of that as well as sweet potato production, yam production, vegetables, you name it.”(SAT)
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