Farmer Levarity Deveaux poses alongside a boar pig at his farm on Marshall Road.
Farmer Levarity Deveaux will be honoured as a pioneer of farming in The Bahamas during the Ministry of Agriculture and Marine Resources Agribusiness Expo 2016 to be held at the Expo site on Gladstone Road, March 9-13, 2016 under the theme “Progressing Towards Food Security: Our Food, Our Future, Our Bahamas.”
Mr. Deveaux, who has been farming for 50-plus years, cultivates vegetables such as cabbage, beets, tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet pepper, broccoli, okra and every now and again sweet corn. He also raises pigs, goats and sheep on his 15-acre farm on Marshall Road. He has loyal clients who include Super Value, Budget, Bahamas Food Services, as well as walk-in customers.
Mr. Deveaux also has 100 of his sheep on loan to the Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Science Institute (BAMSI) in Andros.
He is outspoken and does not back down from a challenge.
“I grew four acres of onions and that is the largest that has ever been grown on New Providence,” Mr. Deveaux said. “I had to do that because that was a challenge from Arnold Forbes when he was the Chairman of the Bahamas Agricultural and Industrial Corporation.
“Mr. Forbes was talking about Senator (Joseph) Curry who was rewarded for growing a half-acre of onions in Exuma; so I grew four acres to show him that they can be grown in New Providence.”
Mr. Deveaux explained that his love for farming started from childhood: “We used to come to Nassau in the summer when school was closed, and when we were going back for school[‘s] opening in September, we had cabbage, tomatoes and other vegetable seeds to start in Staniard Creek, Andros.”
He added, “Growing up, I wanted to be a lawyer, a motor mechanic, or farmer; I stuck with the farming. I worked in Customs, I worked at Bahamasair Cargo but was farming all of the time, so no matter what else I did, I was always farming.”
However, this does not mean that farming has been an easy path for him. Therefore, he wants to assist up-and-coming farmers, and also wishes that the Government would extend more help to them.
“To be able to farm in The Bahamas, the Government needs to give land to people and trust them to start doing something, and have people to assist and correct them along the way.”
Mr. Deveaux thanked the Government for planning to honour him during the Expo, but he also had some additional advice. “I appreciate the Government for honouring me and I hope that they do not wait such a long time for the young farmers who are coming up; encourage them periodically; do not wait 50 years.”
By Llonella Gilbert - Bahamas Information Services
BIS Photos/Patrick Hanna
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