China grants funds for UWI Centre for Food Security and Entrepreneurship agricultural park through ETCAs (Linked to Record ID#72079, #72076, #72077, #54831, and #72080)

Project narrative

The Chinese government has provided four grants through Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreements (ETCAs) to support the construction of the University of the West Indies’ (UWI) Centre for Food Security and Entrepreneurship (CFSE) agricultural park in Dukes on the following dates: January 18, 2017 (see #72077), October 31, 2017 (#72079), July 5, 2019 (see #72076), and November 29, 2019 (see #72080). A second agricultural development project, the Hope Agricultural Training Institute, was funded through these agreements as well (see Record ID#54831). The exact breakdown of funds in these agreements is unknown, though reports about the most recent ETCA indicate that a total of about BDS$45 million has been granted by China for the two agricultural projects combined. The most recent reports from the Barbados Government Information Service indicate that the cost of the CFSE park was (likely BDS) $34 million and fully funded by the grant agreements with the Chinese government. At least BDS$6,073,000 has gone towards the Hope Agricultural Training Institute. The CFSE is currently located at the UWI Cave Hill Campus, where it officially launched in February 2014. It focuses on innovation in agri-business, food production, and food security. The major goals of the center are to find new uses for local plants and promote sustainable development in these industries in the region. The Chinese government grants allocated to support UWI in the first agricultural project will help fund an environmentally-friendly agricultural park for the CFSE, located in Dukes, St. Thomas, on 28.5 acres of land donated by the previous owners in 2012. The park is expected to include land for farming; agro-processing, meat curing, and cotton processing facilities; chocolate manufacturing and training facilities; a food standards laboratory; residential accommodation; and amenities such as a 500-seat conference building, retail shops, restaurants, and recreational facilities. The timeline for the Dukes, St. Thomas agricultural park construction is as follows: On June 4 and July 24, 2015, the Chinese Ambassador to Barbados and the Barbadian Minister of Foreign Affairs signed Letters of Exchange for both the CFSE and Hope Institute projects. Pre-project inspections, also for both projects, were expected to be carried out by the Sixth Design and Research Institute of Machinery Industry around October 2015, according to a report from the China International Contractors Association. The team conducting pre-inspections actually arrived December 31, 2015. A report from the Barbadian newspaper The Barbados Advocate notes a team from China arrived in January 2016 for 25 days to perform inspections. The January 2017 ETCA funded the exploration of implementation, while the others provided funds for the implementation itself. The Town and Country Planning Office of Barbados had approved the plan for the construction of the agricultural park in Dukes as of October 10, 2017. More inspections continued into 2018, with a coordination meeting on March 13, 2018, for more inspections and preliminary work. As of August 21, 2019, UWI had just completed the center's design review, despite reports that construction would begin mid-to-late 2018. The Barbados Advocate reported that China would have a "major hand in the construction phase." Then, on March 28, 2023, the formal groundbreaking ceremony for the project took place.