KINGSTON, Jamaica (JIS) – The Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA), is using its 25th anniversary celebrations across the island to equip farmers with skills to deal with climate change, and will showcase this thrust at the 2015 Denbigh Agricultural Show in May Pen, Clarendon.

According to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of RADA Lenworth Fulton, farmers and other interested patrons attending the three-day event, commencing today, will be exposed to the authority’s major projects and how to ensure that farming deliver high yields in a climate change era.

“The major showpiece at Denbigh will demonstrate aspects of our food processing, and show a significant improvement in climate change resilience, and how to get our farmers to be climate smart,” Fulton told JIS News.

He explains that information will be available at the Denbigh show on ways to be profitable utilising new farming techniques, including drought mitigation strategies, irrigation, water harvesting, green house production and various soil husbandry operations that are necessary in a climate change environment.

The CEO said that the Authority stands on four strategic pillars – improvement in production and productivity of crops and livestock; encouragement of new entrants to the sector; greater focus on women and youth; and organizational realignment with a focus on the technical nature of the authority.

The organization, he added, is also focusing on capacity building of its staff, to better serve the nation’s farmers, as well as the development of alternative sources of income for the Authority, “through income generation projects.”

Stressing that farmers are the main engines of growth in the Jamaican economy, Fulton argued that the country is depending on their productivity to reduce the over US$1 billion to import food into the island.

“The food import bill must be reduced by 40 to 45 per cent over a five-year,” he said, while committing that RADA will be at the forefront of ensuring that farmers get the most from their effort.

The CEO pointed out that farmers will, in a short time, have more trained and informed extension officers available to them, with a focus on improved production and profitability of farmers.

Come September, the authority will open a new office in the parish of Trelawny, built at a cost of $89 million.

The office will be located on the Hague Agricultural Showground, and Fulton said it will be a home for farmers, where they will receive crucial information from RADA and other organisations that will be housed there.