Bluefields Farms' initial research and development started as the Aquaponic Research Center in 2013, with a goal to bring awareness to the alternative to growing food and its benefit to the country. In 2016, they began their commercial aquaponic operation servicing hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, purveyors and chefs.In 2019, the center rebranded to what is now known as Bluefield Farms with the same restaurant quality salad lines to supermarkets, while making them available to the wider public. For Tom Stack, Bluefields Farms operations manager, the goal of the farms is to get people eating more healthily, as well.

“The whole goal for it is really about two things – the health factor and the health food movement, which is a huge thing, and the other reason is just food security, which is just so important. And after last year [as the pandemic unfolded], we saw exactly what happened. We could not keep the supermarket shelves filled with product. As soon as our product went on the shelves, it would disappear and they kept calling, can we get more, and it just was not possible.”

A variety of Bluefields Farms herbs, packaged for the grocery stores.

Bluefield Farms produces leafy greens including salad mixes with various kinds of lettuces; live herbs including basil, cilantro, chives, parsley, mint, oregano and thyme; and microgreens, which typically would be sold to restaurants and which is now available to the public. They also produce vegetables for restaurants such as Swiss chard, kale, bok choy, spring onions and edible flowers, which Stack hopes they can have moved to grocery stores in the near future.

At Bluefields Farms, there is also ongoing research into new crops.

Bluefields Farms now offers such a bumper crop of produce, that they are producing a surplus of goods, according to the operations manager. Those fresh greens and herbs now end up in their farm store, which opened earlier this year and is managed by Letitia McKenzie, directly from the Bluefields Farms greenhouse.

“We are producing a lot more than we can sell at the supermarkets and supply to the restaurants, and we have a lot of research going on into new crops, so what I found is we needed an outlet where we can sell it. For some things, we’re not producing enough volume yet that we can sell to the supermarkets, as there’s still a lot of research and development going into what we can grow, so we place what we grow into the outlet to cover some of the costs of that research.”

Walking into the Bluefields Farms storefront is a sight to behold. The freshness of the product draws you in and you will want to take home everything.

The store also markets fresh produce from partner farmers in their farm store.

“The whole philosophy for me is we are all stronger together. We are not competing with any other Bahamian farmer; we are all in this together. The competition is the imports,” said Stack.

During a recent visit to Bluefields Farms, I got to take in a behind-the-scenes tour of their 25,000-square feet production area that sits on a five-acre farm in western New Providence, where they produce approximately 2,500 pounds of fresh produce every week.

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