ALMANDO Powell of New Building, St Elizabeth has never heard of Cancun, neither is he aware that, in two days, world leaders will gather there to continue negotiations that will drastically alter his life and the way he conducts business.

But although Powell is unaware that he has a say in deciding his fate, and is unable to roll catch phrases like “globalisation” and “trade liberalisation” off his tongue with the ease that these government ministers will no doubt do when they gather in Mexico from September 9-14, this does not mean he is that far removed from the process.

He knows more than most about the adverse effect that the gradual removal of preferential treatment and barriers to trade has been having on business — even if he is unable to verbalise it in technical terms.

“Things getting harder for me still,” says Powell, who has been farming for a decade. In fact, he tells the Sunday Observer that this is due, in part, to the influx of “cheap foreign” produce.

“I must admit that sometimes business is good and sometimes it bad, but is mostly the foreign goods that will stop me still,” he says.

Rohan Ford, 38 and Donovan Smith, 32, can easily identify with Powell, as they too have been unable to ride the wave of economic prosperity that the World Trade Organisation (WTO) — the body that establishes the rules governing trade, finance and investment in the global marketplace — has been promising with the advent of agriculture trade liberalisation.

In fact, all three men say they are unable to compete with the imports, primarily because of decreasing consumer demand for local produce.

“Most people prefer to buy the foreign foods more than the Jamaican ones because they feel that it is cheaper. But this is all in their minds,” Smith argues.

“Our goods jam (pile up) pon we because most people go for the foreign goods,” Ford agrees.

“And when the food spoils in the fields, and you don’t have hogs to eat it up, you have to go ask your neighbour to come and take the things out your garden so that they can give it to their animals.

“But if you can’t afford to buy back the seeds and fertiliser, how you a go start back business, especially when you have children going to school?” Ford asks. “How do they expect us to live as a small man?”

Barrington Roye has been farming for three decades, and he feels that if the Government “stops the imports”, local farmers “can survive”.

Roye easily recalls the early 1990s when the Government was forced to liberalise imports under the World Bank adjustment policies and the dairy farming industry went belly up.

“We can’t afford to make our little bread slip away from us like that,” he says.

“The foreign goods a kill wi, that and the price of fertiliser. The Government has to put a stop to the foreign goods,” Roye reiterates.

But this is not possible under the WTO rules. For, apart from enforcing anti-dumping laws and insisting on quality imports, there is not much else the Government can do, except, of course, to collectively negotiate the best terms for farmers from the developing world when they sit down at meetings like the upcoming WTO Fifth Ministerial in Cancun, Mexico.

But even more important than this, farmers need to engage in these discussions at the local level so that their concerns can be taken to international meetings.

This is a point that National Workers Union (NWU) president, Clive Dobson, consistently underscores.

“I don’t even think some of the people who operate some of these business entities are aware of the impact of globalisation and trade liberalisation — not to mention the workers,” Dobson says. “It is even worse at the worker level where it seems to be a zero situation.”

He adds that both the trade unions and the Government must move quickly to educate Jamaicans about various trade matters and the impact they will most likely have on job and food security.

“Organisations like the labour movement, in conjunction with the Government, need to really embark upon a sustained educational programme, of which we have not done. We have touched on it,” he says, “but we need to do more on that and we need to sustain it on an ongoing basis.”

But at the crack of dawn when Powell heads out into “the bush” to the small plot of “borrowed” land on which he sows peppers, thyme and tobacco, he does not think about issues such as the rulings of the WTO, the implications of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) or even about the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME).

As far as he is concerned, these negotiations have very little to do with his present predicament. Right now, all he wants to do is “catch a crop” so that he can, at the very least, put food on the table and pay a “few bills”.

He feels that if he plants more crops, works harder and finds a market for his produce, he can, as he says “still live”.

But while the downsides of globalisation are clear, the farmers are also seeing the positives. Several St Elizabeth farmers who spoke with the Sunday Observer said that they had found a market for their thyme through an exporter.

“We have a export man that come and buy the thyme from us. Sometimes business good, I can’t tell you no lie or God will take away my blessings,” states Ford. “When the exporter man buys the thyme, me can eat a food and feel nice,” he adds.

Ford declines to name the “exporter” but says he buys large quantities of thyme from select farmers in the area and packages the product for the export market.

Ford recalls the first time he received indirect earnings from the export trade.

“A some 19 years now since me leave school and a plant crop… and a when me a 36 years old (two yeas ago) me mek my first big money.

“The first big money me hold in a them hand yah, a $18,000. And when me get the money, me come up to this big tree, and a bend down and kiss the earth. Me can’t forget — ask the export man if you think is lie. Mi sit down and me count the money about five times and eye water start run out a me eye. As you see me with my knife in my right hand, me nah tell no lie,” Ford says emotionally.

Ford recalls that he was so ecstatic that he tried, unsuccessfully, to return $2,000 to the exporter who had given him his first real taste of the benefits that the WTO says will trickle down to economically marginalised farmers as the international economy expands under trade liberalisation.

Powell, Smith and Ricky Rehedul also benefit from similar arrangements with the said exporter.

But according to Rehedul, the market for thyme fluctuates. “Sometimes it kinda up and down, it depends on the weather up North.”

He explains that during the winter months there is greater demand for thyme as opposed to the summer months.

“It’s mainly the thyme alone we depend on to bring in some money because the other crops like the cucumber, cabbage and tomatoes not doing so well. So it is mainly when the exporter man comes that we can eat a food,” Smith says.

But Ambassador Peter King feels that this is as good as it gets, unless small farmers like Smith and his colleagues pool their resources.

“This little one-one uneconomic farmer, having a business in the bush can’t work — he will be dead in the water. People will have to come together in a structured way, which is why the whole programme of cluster competitiveness, where there is common buying at better prices, common marketing, etc, is the way to go,” King tells the Sunday Observer.

He is also calling on all the social partners to join forces and rescue the sector.

“I think the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS) has a very important role to play and I am extremely pleased at the leadership and direction being given by the new president, Norman Grant; but I think both the public and private sector have to place far greater resources behind research and development. I think that it is only through the increase of knowledge and application of the most efficient techniques that we can make it,” King argues.

He says the country also needs to place greater emphasis on productivity and yield in order to gain a competitive edge in the global marketplace.

Norman Grant, the JAS president, tells the Sunday Observer that the organisation has plans in place to encourage more young people to get into farming.

“There is also a programme in place for branch revitalisation and the overall positioning of the JAS as the vehicle that will be repositioning itself to deal with the concerns of farmers,” Grant says.

“Without a doubt, representation is going to be a critical issue, and the presence of the JAS in the rural areas is going to be fundamental to that process,” he adds.

“The JAS will utilise a collaborated approach as it relates to services that will benefit farmers and help to transform rural communities, which I, without a doubt, believe is not only the bedrock of economic development for Jamaica, but the centre of wealth creation for the country… so we need to get back to the development of rural communities.”

But Grant will have a difficult time convincing farmers that they need to operate as one unit to effectively compete in the global marketplace, as several of them have been forced, in recent times, to scale down operations or move out of farming.

Manley Horne, who owns several acres of prime land in St Elizabeth and who operates at least two hardware stores, tells the Sunday Observer that this is his last year in agriculture.

“Come the end of December, I am out of farming,” he says.

He plans to go “into cricket” full time. He manages a women’s cricket club.

His hardware and cricket interests aside, Horne specialises in planting water melons, but says he has not managed to “catch a crop” since the start of the year because of a lack of piped water in the area.

Most farmers in South East St Elizabeth buy water by the truck load, which costs $3,000 per load, and the farmers say it takes several loads to adequately water their crops, particular when they have been without rainfall for long periods of time.

That area has had very little rainfall since the start of the year.

“Since the year start, I lose about 10 melon crops because of the water situation. I mean, a total of $785,000 gone down the drain,” Horne complains.

Dalton South, Willis Ebanks and Leroy Rochester tell similar stories.

“Me a farm from me about 11 year-old, and now me a 32… and things nuh change much,” says South, who complains that he also needs water to plant his latest crop of melons.

“A down inna the woods me work, and right yah now, we a lose nuff things because there is no water and the sun just burning up the crops,” he adds.

The farmers also fret about the high price of fertilisers and seeds, in the absence of the huge subsidies enjoyed by their counterparts in places like the United States and Europe.

Add to that, the fact that the overseas competitors rarely face such a combination of problems like the lack of water, influx of cheap imports, market glut, praedial larceny, and problems with stray animals that regularly damage their crops, to get the full picture.

Grant hopes to reach turned-off farmers through the JAS’ ‘Eat Jamaica campaign’ that seeks to encourage Jamaicans to support local produce.

“This campaign, which we will launch in September, seeks to create demand for our local produce, and therefore put the Jamaican farmer into a position where we can go back to the land and produce on a massive scale,” he says.

For his part, Ambassador King points out that the country needs to look at some of the present international trade arrangements and, from these, shape policies that can move the country forward.

“We also have to be prepared to use international trade laws, where there are trade remedy standards, to keep out products and goods that do not meet the exacting standards that we ought to require, and ensure equally that our own products meet those standards.

Meanwhile, the agriculture ministry is relying on its Agriculture Support Services and Productive Projects Fund (ASSPPF) to help nudge farmers to operate more efficiently in the new world economy.

Audrey Wright, agribusiness development officer, says the ASSPPF assists farmers with things like marketing, training and funding, among other support services.

However, as both Ambassador King and JAS President Grant stress, small farmers will not be able to reap sufficient benefits from the programmes that are designed to assist them if they continue to take on the global challenges single-handedly.