BIGWOODS, St Elizabeth – Agriculture Minister Dr Christopher Tufton says the Government, in collaboration with a large private sector entity, is to establish a packaging facility in the bread basket, parish of St Elizabeth by yearend.

“This year we are going to be establishing the packaging facility at Hounslow. The money has been approved and a big Jamaican company is to manage the facility,” Tufton told farmers in Bigwoods late last month.

According to the agriculture minister, the facility will play a key role in absorbing the excess produce of farmers in the parish who have often complained bitterly about the lack of market for their produce.

Acknowledging the plight of the farmers in the parish, Tufton said his ministry was now taking the necessary steps to address the matter.

“What we are going to do is to deal with the marketing issue because we know it is a major concern of the farmers,” he emphasised.

“So what we are going to do is to put a RADA (Rural Agricultural Development Authority) officer in each parish who will tabulate the data and who will know what the production levels are, and what is being produced, and then use that to link back to the end-users like the hotels, agro producers and supermarkets,” he explained.

The packing facility, he added, would purchase the produce from the farmers.

“They (the produce) will then be graded, packaged and sold, so the farmers will no longer have the burden to look for markets,” Tufton said.

He warned, however, that the initiative will require a lot of discipline to work.

“It can’t work in an ad hoc manner, the farmers must be committed to the process, so they will have to commit a particular quantity to the packaging house,” he emphasised.

Last year, St Elizabeth produced roughly 24 per cent of the island’s domestic crops.