'Idle lands for idle hands'

Gov't looks to processed foods industry

BY ALICIA DUNKLEY Observer staff reporter dunkleya@jamaicaobserver.com

Monday, November 30, 2009

The processed foods industry is one area the Government will be counting on to get the country out of the current economic slump, in what Finance Minister Audley Shaw has said presents an opportunity to "marry idle lands with idle hands".

Shaw, who was speaking yesterday at the 2009 Business and Professional Expo put on by the Adventist-Laymen's Services and Industries (ASI) and the East Jamaica Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston, said Jamaica's salvation rests in its productive capacity.

According to the finance minister, the Government is already looking beyond the US$1.2-billion standby facility for which it has applied to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

"The IMF will come and they will go; what is going to remain is Jamaica," said Shaw. "The challenge, therefore, is we have to find ultimately the long-term solutions for our country. Many other opportunities exist in Jamaica. Let's start with processed foods. There is an opportunity for us to marry idle lands with idle hands all across Jamaica."

According to the finance minister, he is now averse to signing waivers, given Jamaica's potential to produce much of what is being imported.

"I am very reluctant to sign waivers now. Everytime I see another application for a waiver, every one must be justified. I want to know why can't it be produced in Jamaica and in the amounts needed," he said.

"One of the reasons domestic agriculture is performing 10 per cent better than last year is, we are discouraging the importation of food to feed tourists, when we can produce that," Shaw told an appreciative audience.

He said Jamaica would do well to tap into the vast market for processed foods, describing it as an area which is ripe for development and entrepreneurial activity.

"We export US$250 million worth of ethnic foods to the Jamaican and Caribbean Diaspora right now," he said. "It is conservatively estimated that the market for processed foods in the Jamaican and Caribbean Diaspora the world over is closer to US$2.5 billion, 10 times what we are producing now. That is an area that is crying out for more enterprise, initiative and investment."

Jamaica, he said, needed "to have more breadfruit orchards, more ackee orchards; instead of all the idle lands, we need to have more orchards".

Shaw also used his address to commend the convenors of the expo, describing it as timely and well-placed, and lauded the Seventh-Day Adventists for their continued "pursuit of excellence".