Mission
To protect plant health and biodiversity in Barbados by ensuring the safe production and importation of crops, crop products and food.
The Plant Protection Department encompasses the following:
- Entomology Unit,
- Plant Pathology Unit, and
- Plant Quarantine Unit
The Plant Protection Department functions to protect and enhance agricultural crop resources through the provision of research, developmental, regulatory and extension services in the area of pest and disease management.
The Plant Protection Department’s mandate is the phytosanitary security and conservation of Barbados’ agricultural plant biodiversity through the identification of plant pests and diseases and provision of environmentally sound control practices.
The Plant Protection Department is involved in:
- assisting in the commitment to ensuring the country’s food security, especially within the current global climate, by ensuring that good agricultural practices and food safety policies are adhered to.
- ensuring that the country is well served with respect to being able to respond, identify and manage new pest incursions with a focus on strengthening existing laws and regulations as well as providing technical expertise and training to the quarantine staff involved.
- fulfilling the requirements set out in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Agreement and protocols including the preparation of a country pest list, conducting pest risk analyses and surveillance for economically important pests and diseases.
Services
- promotion of integrated pest management.
- ensuring availability of safe and quality pesticides for sustaining crop production from the ravages of pests and diseases.
- coordinating the quarantine measures for reporting, detecting and eliminating exotic pests.
- detecting and eliminating harmful weed species.
- fulfilling the requirements set out in the WTO/SPS Agreement and protocols including the preparation of a country pest list, conducting pest risk analyses and surveillance for economically important pests and diseases.
- complementing food safety by ensuring that good agricultural practices and policies are adhered to.
- testing bio-pesticides (bio-rationals) and other chemicals generally regarded as safe (GRAS) to ensure that they afford the farmer the protection needed and to put in place the necessary regulations for the importation of these bio-pesticides.
- ensuring that the country is well served with respect to being able to respond, identify and manage new pest incursions through strengthening of existing laws and regulations as well as providing technical expertise and training.
- assisting in the education of farmers, schools and other tertiary institutions and the public in general about pests and diseases of plants.