HANOVER, Jamaica – With more than 4,500 hectares of arable land to be utilised to its full potential, Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Pearnel Charles Jr Minister Charles said the parish of Hanover was prime for agricultural expansion.

Charles was keynote speaker at the second staging of the Knockalva Polytechnic College’s (KPC) signature event, Farm Fest 23 on Thursday.

The event was held under the theme, “Re-imaging Agriculture for Sustainable Development,” on the college campus.

“I mention this because students, as you think about your training you must connect your training to practical execution,” Charles charged.

He added that government policies dictated that “we must include our youth in at least 20 percent of what we will be doing”.

“The only way to go forward is to make sure that those who are now involved in farming, who at some point will not be involved, have a generation coming up, trained, excited, motivated and energised to transform our agricultural sector into what it must be in 2030 and beyond,” the agriculture and fisheries minister said.

He also commended the college for staging the event under a purposeful theme that was connected to what the Ministry of Agriculture was trying to do in encouraging and supporting farmers to grow smart and eat smart.

“Over the past couple of years we have seen where there is need to focus more on production and productivity, and in particular we see where we have to light a fame of interest in our youth because you are not just the future, you are the ones that we are relying on to make sure that we can grow agriculture (and) continuously move up in a sustainable way,” he stated.

Member of Parliament for Hanover Eastern, Dave Brown said “Knockalva Polytechnic College is strategically poised for exponential growth as it provides quality education, excellent skills training and character building opportunities which are directly related to fulfilling the needs of the labour market.”

He added that it was critical that agriculture not be seen as a default option but as an industry with great appeal and in which people could live well.

“That is the way that agriculture can be part of sustainable development (and) as stakeholders we must commit to assisting this institution to achieve this goal,” he stated.

– Horace Hines