3 minute read
The Land of the Iguanas
Best of the bunch
Islet, Mon Repos and Vieux Fort, for example.
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This did not stop others from wanting to take control and over the next century and a half the island changed hands between the French and English 14 times. Both the French and English recognised the value of Saint Lucia for its sugar plantations and the population was swelled by the arrival of slaves from Africa. In the half a century after 1730, the population grew from just 463 to more than 19,000.
The 1814 Treaty of Paris saw the country ceded to the British who proclaimed the island a Crown colony. Two decades later, it became part of Britain’s Windward Islands administration. The 20th century marked a period of
growing autonomy from the British. It gained a representative government in 1924 and joined the semi-autonomous but short-lived West Indies Federation in 1958. The country began looking after it own domestic affairs in 1967.
On 22 February 1979, Saint Lucia gained full independence from Britain with the Hon. John George Melvin Compton becoming the first Prime Minister of Saint Lucia and Sir Allen Lewis as the first Governor General. As a member of the Commonwealth, Queen Elizabeth II remained the country’s head of state.
2019 marked the 40th anniversary of independence.
For more on Saint Lucia’s history, see www.britannica.com/place/Saint-Lucia
Bunches of ripening bananas are a common sight as you drive around Saint Lucia and have been ever since the 1950s when the Caribbean sugar industry collapsed and what locals call the “green fig” became a staple crop here.
In 2017, Saint Lucia exported 20,000 tonnes of bananas and the industry employs about 10,000 people. The largest export market is and always has been the United Kingdom.
Yet the market is not as ripe as it once was. In the industry’s 1990s heyday, Saint Lucia produced 132,000 tons of bananas for export.
The main reason for the decline was a change to trade rules in the 1990s. Prior to this, the European Union had favoured producers from former colonies, including Saint Lucia. Yet a challenge from the United States changed all that. Traditional farmers in Saint Lucia now have to compete to sell their bananas in Europe alongside Latin American producers who tend to operate more large-scale commercial operations than their Caribbean counterparts.
The problems facing the industry do not stop there. The 2018 tropical storm Kirk is said to have damaged up to 80 percent of the island’s crop. The industry can recover. Hurricanes Dean and Tomas had devastated the country’s banana farms a decade before and they had recovered.
The UK remains an important market thanks to its appetite for Fairtrade products. Some 95% of Saint Lucia’s main producer Winfresh’s production is Fairtrade.
Yet the nation’s famers may need to diversify. A new three-year project aims to increase local production of seven key crops that are currently imported at the cost of $7 million. This import substitution agricultural programme is looking at growing cucumbers, lettuce, sweet peppers, cabbages, watermelons, pineapples and cantaloupes locally.
Although this diversification may be necessary, the thought that the country could ever stop growing bananas is unthinkable. After all, bananas are a key ingredient in its national dish of green fig and saltfish.
