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Ground broken for new agricultural packaging house
. Part of farm modernisation programme
BY GARFIELD MYERS Editor at large, South Central Bureau myersg@jamaicaobserver.com
Sunday, October 25, 2009
MOUNTAINSIDE, ST Elizabeth - Ground was broken on Thursday for a farm produce packaging house, described by Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Christopher Tufton as "a dream come true" and another step in the drive to modernise and transform Jamaican agriculture.
Located just east of Mountainside in the water-rich, south west St Elizabeth farming Mecca of Hounslow - which Tufton says is on schedule for rapid "value-added" agricultural expansion over the next few years - the packaging house is expected to cost J$46-47 million to build and equip.
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| (From left) Canada's High Commissioner to Jamaica Stephen Hallihan and Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Dr Christopher Tufton break ground at site of the Hounslow Post Harvest and Packing Facility in St Elizabeth. In the background is permanent secretary in the MOAF Donovan Stanberry, Pastor Audley Facey and Gresford Bennett, development officer at the Canadian International Development Agency. |
It is part of the Improving Jamaica's Agricultural Productivity (IJAP) Project, which is primarily funded by a grant of C$4.9 million from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). There is matching funds worth C$1.5 million from the Jamaican Government which is the "implementing agency" of the IJAP and C$134,956 from the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) - the "executing agency".
As explained by IICA's Cynthia Currie, the three-year IJAP project - which ends in 2011 - comprises a greenhouse production aspect of which the Hounslow packaging house complete with cold storage equipment is a part, as well as a sustainable fisheries aspect.
The greenhouse component involves two packaging houses - the first at Hounslow and the second slated for Christiana, Northern Manchester next year. Allied to the packaging houses will be 40 greenhouses for "beneficiary" farmers in two "greenhouse clusters" across southern St Elizabeth, North Manchester, South St Ann, South Trelawny and North Clarendon.
Ground was also broken on Thursday for one of the 40 IJAP greenhouses - allocated to veteran farmer Edith Chedda located just five minutes drive from the packaging house. Chedda's greenhouse - set to cost about J$1 million and 3,000 square feet in size - will be among those providing vegetables to the packaging house.
Organisers say the Hounslow packaging facility, which is to be operated by mega food processor and distributor GraceKennedy Limited, will be completed in six months with construction work slated to begin within "a week or two". The job will be done by an as yet unnamed contractor.
Opal Whyte of the Rural Agricultural Development Agency, who is the project manager, told the Sunday Observer that the Hounslow packaging house will have capacity of about 13,000 tonnes of vegetables. "We are looking at tomatoes, bell peppers, cabbage, carrots - all vegetables that are grown in St Elizabeth." said Whyte.
If demand allows, the packaging house will cater not just to farmers in St Elizabeth but from other parishes as well, she said.
Erwin Burton, CEO of Grace Kennedy Foods told the Sunday Observer that the packaging plant would fit nicely into his company's plans for a 10,000 square feet pepper and escallion mashing facility "on this same location".
Burton said GraceKennedy would "enter contracts" with farmers supplying the packaging house as well as the pepper/escallion mash processing factory.
In relation to the packaging house, his company will wrap produce using the Grace brand and sell to "hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, wholesalers wherever the market is.".
In addition to vegetables such as lettuce, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers to be produced mainly in greenhouses, Grace will also package tubers such as yams and sweet potatoes bought from farmers operating in open fields, Burton said.
"It's not that we are going to become a one-stop shop for everything but whatever the farmer is producing and we can facilitate a market for that product, we will do it," Burton said.
As to the pepper/escallion mash factory, Burton said contracts had been signed with 50-60 pepper and scallion farmers to provide enough produce for "one million kilos of pepper mash and one million kilos of scallion (mash)". It will be used in sauces, not least the world-renowned Hot Pepper Sauce. Actual production of pepper and escallion mash had already started at a facility in Bull Savannah, South East St Elizabeth. That operation would be moved and expanded once the factory at Hounslow is completed, Burton said.
The growing demand for Grace-branded farm products and shortages of materials such as pepper and escallion mash meant the developments at Hounslow were of vital importance to GraceKennedy, said Burton.
"This is actually a major interest for GraceKennedy because we have tried several times to grow produce for ourselves but we are not good at it. We are brand builders, we are building the Grace brand worldwide, and this is how we now include the farmers by giving them the opportunity to grow and earn a living out of a fixed contract," he said. "We do not necessarily have to become growers but we are facilitators," he added.
Tufton said post-harvesting infrastructure such as the packaging factory was a key ingredient in making farming more efficient and farm produce more affordable.
Inadequate post-harvest management was currently costing the country 20-30 per cent of domestic agricultural production - equating to about $5 to 7 billion, he said.
Noting that the Government was encouraging simple contract arrangements between "primary producers" and the market chain, Tufton cautioned that all sides would have to fulfil their commitments or risk failure.
Using as an example the collapse of the Agricultural Marketing Corporation years ago, Tufton said: "In the past systems like this have fallen down. farmers agreed to supply at a particular price and at the appointed time someone comes along and offers a higher price and the farmers abandon the original arrangement that they had. That can't work".
At the same time, the minister said, farmers needed to be paid on time. "Farmers cannot wait three months to get paid." he said to loud applause from dozens of farmers. "It is unfair, farmers are vulnerable, they depend on cash flow, they are business people like everyone else.," he said.
Burton told the Sunday Observer that GraceKennedy would be sticking strictly to contract arrangements with the farmers. Those farmers who failed to honour their obligations would lose their contracts, he said.
Recalling that the Canadian-funded IJAP project had flowed from the devastation of Hurricane Dean two years ago, Canada's High Commissioner to Jamaica, Stephen Hallihan said the Caribbean region's food bill of US$3 billion per year provided proof that his country was on the right path in assisting agriculture. He assured his listeners that his country remained committed to its developmental philosophy of "good governance, prosperity and security".
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