Grant wants ‘eat what you grow’ campaign intensified

Lynford Simpson

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

If Senator Norman Grant has his way, only locally grown foods would be served on the menus at the official homes of the governor general, prime minister and opposition leader.

In fact, this would be extended to all government ministries and departments as part of Grant’s drive to boost the ‘grow what we eat, eat what we grow’ campaign he launched back in 2003 when he was president of the Jamaica Agricultural Society.

His latest call came in the Senate on Friday, where he was making his contribution to the State of the Nation Debate.

“We will be well on our way to a food-secure economy,” the Opposition senator asserted. He urged the intensification of the campaign in order to reduce the country’s import bill, create jobs and reduce the cost of health care by the consumption of healthier foods and vegetables.

Meantime, Grant has called for an increase in the annual budgetary allocation to the agriculture sector which, he said, has been starved for cash over the past four decades with a mere one per cent allocation each year.

He has proposed that under the pending memorandum of understanding, which the Government, opposition and the sector are to execute, “we should aim to move the sector’s allocation to at least 2-2.5 per cent of the national budget.

Turning to the agreement between the Government and the International Monetary Fund, the opposition senator noted that while the General Consumption Tax on farm produce was retracted, there will still be some impact that will require Government’s intervention in the upcoming budget.

On the matter of domestic crop production, he said efforts must be made to increase the yield from the average 400,000 metric tonnes per annum, by 20 percentage points each year.

“It would mean that moving from a base of 490,000 metric tonnes, we would by 2015 move our domestic crop production up to 1,219 metric tonnes,” Grant explained.

The Opposition senator is also proposing that:

• Clear targets be set to increase the population of animals by 10 per cent;

• Government provides 4-H Clubs with funding to implement a goat and sheep revolving programme;

• Closed community centres be transformed into agro-processing factories; and

• that greater efforts are made to reduce the country’s import bill by producing more.

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COMMENTS (7)

Verna Kitson
2/23/2010

@ D Ranks. Well said! Unfortunately for Grant, he has not offered one novel idea to make this happen; it's the same-old same-old, so people are likely to read it as political speechifying and nothing more. Consequently people will not see this as an incentive to to come up with unique ways to make that charge a reality. If he's serious about this grow what you eat, he would look at the very areas that people ignore - community-supported agriculture - and start there. Rather than focus on "agriculture", he ought to focus on creating "farming communities" where everyone can participate in such activities beyond planting coco and yam. There ought to be incentives for urbanized communities around our major towns to do this, and local government should have the authority and support to make these happen. Likewise, voluntary and NGO organisations should be encouraged to work with various communities and social groups to create sustainable agricultural projects that serve that community. There is so much that can be done, but the vision is surely lacking.

ONeil Hibbert
2/23/2010

iT IS A PITTY Mr Manley plan was not realised in the 70s we would have been much further ahead in agriculture for sure.

D Ranks
2/23/2010

Cris Tufton is not a knight in shining armour, he is just a minister, with some very grand ideas, working in a government that is hell bent on building great big hotels on arable lands, and doing away with fishing beaches. In fact, the previous government did just that.
Tufton sees all of this and does demonstrate a passion for good agricultral practices, he has achieved, over his short tenure, what most have not, but he still as to follow party lines. And so in St Mary a grand hotel with a casino is being planned, the aerodrome at Bascobel is being expanded and farmers are being told that they wil have move out. Go figure.
So anyone, regardless of political stripes or none at all, who comes out and advocate for us to eat Jamaican is welcomed to do so and ought to cheered on. It is their voices which will motivate farmers to produce and to stand up to big companies when they make request for arable lands to build buildings that does not feed us, but fatten them.
It is good that we can talk openly about eating what we grow, but we have to bring into the debate the sacrifices we are intent on making for tourism and who exactly will benifit. Because if we allow the tourist industry to thrump all other development we will have to eat what others grow since we will not be able to grow anything for ourselves. That money we will have earned from the tourist will have to be used to pay the foreign food producers and they may well be the ones who owns the hotels in the first place. They come from countries with very good agricultural practices, that in most cases protect their own arable lands with a villigance you cannot imagine.
It is not just yam and coco or banana, but the food from our seas that we ought to eat, and that my good people is being threatened more than anything. It is going to the tourist industry, who is taking over our coastal areas by the miles and displacing our fishermen. So let us not clap these guys as yet but encourage them to speak up for all our food sources, which will eventually save us from starvation.

baRt siMsen
2/23/2010

30 odd years late... when Manley tried to introduce this idea back in the early 70 the JLP was most upset. They said that "Blackman" is supposed to eat whatever they want to eat. They soon claimed that this idea of self reliance was a sign thet the country was going communist. Is the country now going communist finally???? The laff is on the poor jamaican people....

john blake
2/23/2010

I was trying to find out what Mr. Grant's direct contribution would have being in achieve his utterances, but as usual none was in the article. Manley said what he said long ago, did he do anything to realise it? Mr. Patterson spoke about values and attitudes, what did he achieve in that regards. But we are bombarded everyday with reminders. Too much talking too much. Lets do something. End education for just talk please.

2/23/2010

I agree with Mr. Grant. I also think we should eat what we grow, and the government should place tuff tariffs on imported good even from CARICOM.

Clinton Forbes
2/23/2010

Sit back and enjoy the ride Senator Grant, Chris Tufton have all dis under control.

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Grant wants ‘eat what you grow’ campaign intensified