Food Donor Spotlight

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          General Manager of Lucayan Tropical, Tim Hauber, is photographed at the
             Solomon's Fresh Market "Locally Grown Produce" section of the store.

1.) Lucayan Tropical has been a long-time donor of surplus fresh produce to Hands for Hunger. When did you learn of our mission and what attracted you to our cause?

We inquired about Hands for Hunger after seeing your trucks around town, listening to a television interview with Alanna Rodgers, and meeting H4H staff at your offices located at the New Providence Community Centre. We found that our organizations shared similar values regarding the need for national food security.  

2.) Roughly, how much of your product was not being sold or rotting before distribution?

Fortunately, almost all production is currently being sold through our distributor, Bahamas Food Services, or moved at our weekly Farmer’s Markets. However, the nature of farming means that we sometimes have bumper crops. It is excellent to share these extras with those who really need fresh vegetables.

3.) What would happen to unsalable product in the past?

Our farm composts leaves and surplus produce to create great soil for outdoor production. Still, veggies are grown to be enjoyed by people first. Prior to alignment with H4H, we offered surplus veggies to various charitable organizations. 

Working with H4H has greatly simplified our corporate giving. We have chosen to provide surplus to those who need it most. We allow H4H to vet and supply to sound organizations who are effectively and consistently serving the hungry. We make one call and can rely upon having an H4H truck here within 24 hours. 

As H4H volunteers, we have also personally observed the professionalism, fairness and transparency of your non-profit organization. In your office, there is an oversized map of New Providence.  Pushpins identify organizations with which you partner and help target new “pockets” of hunger. 

We’ve often said that H4H has raised the bar for other NPO’s in this country. As you develop as an organization, we trust that you are able to mentor and grow other service groups to become as effective, accountable and sustainable as H4H has become.

4.) Share some information about what makes Lucayan Tropical Produce unique. Why is your operation an admirable program and worthy of support from the community?

Lucayan Tropical Produce (LTP) grows clean, economical produce in our greenhouses and outdoor fields during the Bahamian growing season. We are a Bahamian-owned Company located in western New Providence. We are passionate about improving the quality and volume of local produce. We aim to serve the community by exploring and sharing “new” agricultural technologies such as hydroponic cultivation, organic methods of production and tissue culture propagation. We believe that our country must produce sufficient staple crops to provide for the basic needs of our own people, and that we must reduce our reliance on expensive, marginally regulated food imports.

Some other benefits we offer our community include:

• Working with other agricultural stakeholders such as BAIC (Bahamas Agricultural and Industrial Corporation) to introduce effective new     technologies (such as tissue cultured bananas and pineapples) to traditional farmers around the Commonwealth;
  
• Re-educating Bahamian young people to envision agriculture as a profitable economic sector;
  
• Offering interesting job opportunities in farming and applied science to Bahamian young people. Some of our interns have gone on to start their own agricultural businesses, work in the national park system or in private zoos. Others have stayed to grow with the farm.
  
• Developing exciting farmer’s markets which take our produce to the people, attract other local farmers and producers, foster community development, and encourage consumers to “talk to the farmer.” Through these connections, we aim to inspire our people to improve the quality of the food they eat, to become aware of where their food comes from, to grow their own food, and to otherwise aim to purchase seasonally available vegetables, fish and fowl. 
  

5.) We are always delighted to receive large quantities of locally grown produce. How often can we expect to receive nutritious and fortifying vegetables from Lucayan Tropical?

We are happy to move our farmer’s market surplus to H4H on a weekly basis, and we’ll keep calling when we’re able to share a bumper crop.

In the meantime, let me say that partnerships like ours need to become even more aggressive in educating our people regarding food security. Government officials have reported that there is no more than a 1.5 month food supply in the country, should supply lines be interrupted by natural disaster, war or an oil crisis. 

We need to tackle hunger at the root. It’s time to overturn the perception that agricultural work is intrinsically degrading. We’re all here precisely someone knew how to grow, catch and preserve food!   It certainly was not due to the generosity of a slave owners or successive colonial governments. Enterprising and resourceful Bahamians learned the secret of survival in tough times and we could take a page from their book. I always tell students that no baby has ever come into the world without a mother equipped with basic feeding apparatus. Mom knows she’s doing her job right when the baby can start feeding itself, and it’s gratifying when a young adult gets a job and starts buying her own food.   Now why would we bring a country to independence without envisioning a model for eventual self-sustenance? 

We need to rewrite history textbooks which infer that farming will be unsuccessful because our soils are too poor and there is no respite from insects. Greenhouses like ours avoid harmful pesticides by using beneficial insects to control predatory bugs. 

We need to teach our children that a $4 seedling planted in a bucket can produce $300 worth of food.   Imagine how much money one might extract then from all the seeds of one tomato.

In other countries, social assistance requires its recipients to register for courses that expose recipients to new skills to help them rebound after losing jobs or enduring chronic unemployment. Perhaps stakeholders in our community—grocery stores who mark up 100% for theft, social organizations and churches, businesses, NPO’s and governments—need to spend some time retraining individuals—especially women—to acquire basic agricultural skills to help cope with times like these.