Thirty farmers from St Mary will be among the third batch of participants to receive certification in crop production through a collaborative training programme between the HEART Trust/NTA and the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS).

The participants, who started their training at the Orange River Research Station in Highgate, St Mary, at the beginning of October last year, are scheduled to finish their level one certified training at the end of this month.

According to parish manager at the JAS in St Mary, Jody-Ann Crosdale, the society has been working with farmers over the years in providing consulting services and agricultural development training. However, she explained that the farmers indicated their interest in receiving certification so as to better manage their farms as businesses.

Crosdale said it was against this background that the farmer organisation decided to partner with the HEART/Trust NTA to provide the necessary training as well as certification through the Workforce Solution Programme. She explained that the programme is for people who are 18 years and older.

“The programme began in 2015, and since [then] we have trained two batches. This is the third batch. The first batch was trained in poultry production, and the second group in crop production. How it works is that the JAS provides the participants and the venue, while HEART provides the training and certification,” Crosdale told the Jamaica Observer during a phone interview recently.

She explained that in addition to being trained in crop production, the current participants are also receiving training in entrepreneurship as well as customer service. The parish manager said that participants will receive level one certificates from the institution upon completion of the programme.

Crosdale said that the current batch have indicated that once they have finished, they want to move on to level two training as they are very enthused about the training and want to do more under the programme. She added that while she is not sure when the level two training for the current set of participants or training for the incoming fourth batch of participants will start, as long as enough people are there, the training will continue.

“So once we have the numbers we can do so, and we need a group of at least 15 persons to begin training. The programme is free of cost, so all they have to do is present themselves, but each person has to be registered under the JAS to receive training,” Crosdale said.

She added: “But even if they are not a member and they come requesting training, we don’t turn them back. Instead, we register them to become members, so we don’t turn back persons.”