The process of metrication in Barbados started in the early 1970s with an initiative by the government to push for industrialisation of the economy. The process has progressed slowly but the

metric system The metric system is a system of measurement that succeeded the Decimal, decimalised system based on the metre that had been introduced in French Revolution, France in the 1790s. The historical development of these systems culminated in the d ...

has now replaced the previous imperial units. Although the metric system is the official system of

weights and measures A unit of measurement is a definite magnitude of a quantity, defined and adopted by convention or by law, that is used as a standard for measurement of the same kind of quantity. Any other quantity of that kind can be expressed as a multip ...

of the country, both metric and

US customary units United States customary units form a system of measurement units commonly used in the United States and U.S. territories since being standardized and adopted in 1832. The United States customary system (USCS or USC) developed from English units ...

(similar to or identical with imperial units in many instances) must be used on commodity labels which are exported to the American market. The real estate industry may also tend to cater to most categories of home buyers and likewise may use both metric and imperial standards of measure. Beyond this

distance Distance is a numerical or occasionally qualitative measurement of how far apart objects or points are. In physics or everyday usage, distance may refer to a physical length or an estimation based on other criteria (e.g. "two counties over"). ...

s are usually measured in metres or kilometres;

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

in milligrams, grams or kilograms; and temperature in degrees Celsius.

History

The establishment of a Barbados Industrial Development Corporation, stimulated the advent of a local Barbados National Standards Institute (BNSI) in 1972. The BNSI was a joint collaboration of the Government of Barbados

along Mr. Davis and Mr. Gordon Watson from

UNIDO The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) (French: Organisation des Nations unies pour le développement industriel; French/Spanish acronym: ONUDI) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that assists countries in e ...

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As part of the BNSI's approach, it sought to implement standards to replace the former Imperial Standards for Weights and Measures in Barbados. Weights and Measures in Barbados were defined through the act of Parliament of Barbados, Parliament of the same name that dated back to 1891. It was by-and-large made up of former British Imperial units of measurement, save for local peculiarities. For example: The standard of liquid

gallon The gallon is a unit of volume in imperial units and United States customary units. Three different versions are in current use: *the imperial gallon (imp gal), defined as , which is or was used in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Austral ...

s in Barbados was measured at exactly 231 cu. ins. (a measure used in the United States of America), whereas the British unit of the same was about 277.419 cu.ins. Due to this and other complexities of the market, the government enacted in 1977 an Act of Parliament to switch Barbados to the

International Standard international standard is a technical standard developed by one or more international standards organizations. International standards are available for consideration and use worldwide. The most prominent such organization is the International Or ...

s of Units (SI

https://books.google.com/books?id=BPT79dxkfGsC&dq=metrication+Barbados&pg=PA13] At that point of time, Barbados was one country out of thirteen across the globe which had not yet implemented a process for metrication and it was thought that Barbados needed to move in the direction of the global standards. The plan for the metrication of Barbados called for completion of the processes by 1979. The process was undertaken with the help of a Metrication Board established within BNSI.

BNSI

The BNSI similarly was further spurred by the creation of the

Caribbean Free Trade Association The Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA) was organised on 1 May 1968, to provide a continued economic linkage between the English-speaking countries of the Caribbean. The agreements establishing it came following the dissolution of the W ...

CARIFTA, and trade within this block and external markets created a realisation of benefits to be derived from a transition to metric.

Notes

References

The technological knowledge base for industrializing countries: proceedings
Pgs. 144–147, US Department of Commerce / National Bureau of Standards

– ISO member states.

Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate). ...

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