GOVERNMENT senator, Norman Grant on Thursday rejected a proposal by the Parliamentary Opposition to merge the Rural Agricultural Development Agency (RADA) with the Jamaica Agriculture Society (JAS), and proposed, instead, the integration of the extension services provided by the JAS and RADA.

“I have no problem recommending strongly that an examination be done to assess the merging of the extension services provided by the commodity boards with RADA thereby centralising the extension services,” Grant told the Upper House in his contribution to the state of the nation debate.

The suggestion to merge both entities was mooted by J C Hutchinson, Opposition spokesman on agriculture, during the 2002/2003 budget debate in the Lower House.

However, Grant said the idea of merging the JAS and RADA did not make sense because one was a farmer’s lobby group, defending the interests of members, while the other was a state agency providing extension service and other forms of support to the agriculture sector.

Grant, who is an official of the Jamaica 4-H Club movement, also recommended that the ‘youth in agriculture programme’ at RADA should be transferred to the 4-H, rather than the current collaboration of both organisations in running the programme.

This move, he said, would prevent a “waste of manpower and duplication of effort…and allow RADA to concentrate more effectively on sharpening its extension service expertise.”

Grant, who is also president of the St Andrew Chapter of the JAS, also urged members of the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS) to contribute to the financing of their 107-year organisation to make it less dependent on government funding.

Said Grant: “There are 144,000 registered members in the JAS. If they each pay an annual membership fee of $500 (giving) an annual income of $72 million, even at 50 per cent compliance, the JAS would literally begin to finance itself.”

In the prepared text of his address Grant also mooted the establishment of a national farmers peril insurance plan to be financed from two years of government contributions, seed capital form large agricultural enterprises and quarterly subscriptions from all registered farmers. This could be collected through the People Co-operative Banks network, he said.