THE agriculture sector has been ill served by successive governments since Independence because they have not always selected the “brightest and the best” as minister of agriculture.

As a result, agriculture has been deprived of adequate public sector investment, imaginative policy and a ministry with the requisite technical skills.

Ministers were gentleman farmers who, by virtue of large land ownership, had become the “massa” of some district of peasants and cultivators. In many instances, the minister had never farmed but was a not-too-bright backbencher from a rural constituency or was born in “deep rural”.

Agriculture is not seen as politically glamorous. A politician in a short-sleeved shirt, khaki pants and boots does not compare with a three-piece suit at a meeting in Rome, Washington, DC or Brussels. Addressing farmers in the ‘sun hot’ does not excite public admiration like a meeting with other ministers in the plush conference halls of London.

As the fortunes of agriculture waned, the ministerial post became more undesirable. But, as all thinking persons know, talent, energy and experience can make a difference in any situation in any sector.

The prime minister could only bring Dr Christopher Tufton, his comrade from the National Democratic Movement, into a Jamaica Labour Party Cabinet by giving him a ministry nobody wanted. But Dr Tufton is just what agriculture needed — a man of talent, energy and trained in management to the level of PhD.

He has made a difference to the agriculture ministry and to the agricultural sector. His leadership has galvanised a team with the required expertise, a blend of young technocrats and seasoned experience. He has established a rapport with stakeholders notoriously suspicious of bright young men. He has mobilised new investment from local and foreign sources.

Dr Tufton has been instrumental in the resurrection of the sugar industry, which many had pronounced in a state of “gall and wormwood”. His most recent accomplishment is a decisive move to finalise the divestment of state-owned sugar estates.

Complant International of China has been selected from a shortlist of bidders to begin negotiations to purchase the three remaining properties for J$774 million. Complant will also lease some 18,000 hectares of cane lands yielding J$54.6 million per annum from lease payments, and it will take over full operation of the estates at the end of the 2010/2011 crop year. The company will also explore the feasibility of building a new refinery.

In this breakthrough in the sugar industry,Dr Tufton has had the astute advice of Ambassador Derick Heaven and capitalised on the diplomacy of Prime Minster Bruce Golding on his recent visit to Beijing. He in turn has built on the goodwill created by the Vice- President of China and then PM P J Patterson.

The new venture complements the substantial increase in development assistance from China, which has chosen Jamaica as the point of entry to the Caribbean, in recognition of Jamaica’s leadership of the region.

Dr Tufton’s performance shows what talent and enterprise can accomplish. Hopefully he will not be transferred to a more ‘glamorous’ ministry.

If he and his team continue, agriculture, the stone that the builders rejected to pursue more sexiy ministries, may yet become the cornerstone for Jamaica’s economic development.