Government must establish a national plan for agriculture and give incentives to farmers to use land if the future of farming is going to be secured on the Island.

Those are two of the recommendations in ‘The Role of Agriculture in Bermuda’s Future’, a report produced for the Environmental Coalition of Bermuda.

The report says Bermuda has lost about 87 percent of its agricultural land in the last 85 years and of the 735 acres of arable land available for farming now, only 360 acres are being actively farmed.

And although 40 percent of the Island’s population is involved in backyard farming, there are now only 18 full-time farmers and 33 part-time farmers in the industry.

The report, released to the public this morning, makes a series of recommendations:

* Create incentives, such as tax breaks, to encourage farmers to use land.

* Create parish or community farms to encourage the public to use land.

* Create an agricultural bank.

* Produce a national strategic plan for agriculture.

The report says: “Although Bermuda still has an agricultural industry and some agricultural land to support it, there is a general agreement that both are in a critical state and are fast becoming obsolete.

“Bermudians themselves have played an active role in the decline of agriculture, whether as agricultural landowners or as consumers. Over time, Bermudians’ diminishing appreciation for the agricultural sector has caused it to become undervalued and neglected.

“The challenges the potential collapse of the agriculture industry and the loss of agricultural land pose to Bermuda are far greater than just the loss of commercial farming. There are other significant challenges to which most Bermudians are indifferent, the most important of which is food security.

“With less than 50 farmers left in the agricultural industry and less than 50 percent of agricultural zoned land being farmed today, both are considered in a critical state.”

At the report's launch Anthony Amaral, of Amaral Produce, said Government should consider giving tax incentives to help convince land owners to use their land for farming.

“The number one issue is trying to get arable land back into cultivation,” Mr Amaral said.

“There is a lot of land out there, but land owners would rather let the land sit until it’s grown over with grass. There needs to be some sort of incentive for land owners, like a reduction of property tax provided that the land gets put into cultivation.”

See much more reporting on this in tomorrow’s Royal Gazette