During the 19th century Kodak was the leader in the photography industry worldwide. At one point Kodak had an 85 per cent market share in cameras and 90 per cent in film. For some people, owning a camera was essential to memorialise a special occasion with a “Kodak moment”.

The company did well until the early 21st century when digital cameras began gaining popularity; even though Kodak’s electrical engineer Steven Sasson invented and patented the digital camera circa 1975. Kodak underestimated just how big digital would become. The company’s flawed foresight and over-reliance on existing products prevented it from capitalising on the digital revolution in photography. Subsequently, the iconic Kodak filed for bankruptcy in 2012.

In 2007, BlackBerry dominated 45 per cent of the global cellphone market. Today, it’s zero per cent.

Rapid technological advances have disrupted the manufacturing industry and automation has taken away jobs once holy in the marketplace with high-tech machines. One machine can produce 40,000 plastic, one-litre bottles and fill them with lubricant within 60 minutes. It can run for 24 hours if needed.

Now, artificial intelligence (AI) is providing robotic agricultural solutions for harvesting, tilling, fertilisation, and pest control. Many reduce the volume of fertilisers, pesticides, and herbicides through precision applications. How? Using thermal energy/lasers eliminates weeds without damaging crops or disturbing soil.

For example, companies like Carbon Robotics are using the advancement of AI and real-world object identification to enable new forms of robotics technology to automate tedious tasks, helping offset physical labour challenges on large farms. The company’s LaserWeeder can identify and eliminate 200,000 weeds per hour. The machine attaches to a tractor and combines deep learning computers to locate and “zap” weeds with carbon dioxide lasers mounted on a four-wheel platform powered by diesel and hydraulics. To date, it can identify 80 different types of weeds, destroying over 500 million of them across 40 other crops. It is a thinking machine that does the work of 30 people 24 hours per day.

CEO Paul Mikesell says this new technology will be cost-effective in the long run: “It saves them money because they don’t have to go find labour,” said Mikesell. “It saves them money because they don’t have to spray chemicals and all this stuff. So, we’ve heard feedback from farmers which was, ‘I love the way it’s weed control, but can you also do thinning?’ So, we’ve added laser thinning as well.” (NBC News, May 10, 2023)

Oregan students also build the BroccoliBot to harvest the vegetable.

So what does this mean for the future of our agricultural sector, even our overseas farm work programme that many Jamaicans rely on?

I have repeatedly said over the years that the concept of “eat what we grow and grow what we eat” is an outdated model for our agricultural sector’s current and future development as it focuses too much inward than outward. Recently, I spoke to it in Parliament.

Many people did not understand, including the president of the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS) Lenworth Fulton, who did not listen to what I said but, instead, criticised, that conveyed the concept was “primitive and should be thrown through the window what Lisa Hanna has said [is] we shouldn’t eat our food that we grow, we should import the food. And while I recognise that that import policy exists in the Caribbean, they have that policy because they don’t have any land to grow anything and most of their islands is sand anyway. So you can’t import that and say we should just import, import, import”.

That’s not what I said, President Fulton!

Fulton is a friend, so I immediately called him and asked if he heard what I had explained to Parliament. He admitted that he did not, so I sent him what I said to support our farmers, grow efficiently, and export for wealth creation.

Logically, if we improve the incomes of our farmers we’ll strengthen their purchasing power which will, in turn, drive growth in our entire economy. Therefore, our goal should be to improve the standard of living for our small farmers and increase employment and income in all sectors of the economy through their linkages with other sectors.

The fact is that, having followed this “inward thinking”, all we have created is poor farmers, and our agricultural output is the lowest in every product it has been for more than 30 years. So let us try a different approach and make our farmers better off, as the current one is indeed not working by any measure.

Moving forward, we should be tactical and support agricultural products with export markets and value-added potential. Our pepper, ginger, mango, cocoa, coffee, ackee, papaya, romaine lettuce, avocados, sea island cotton, and organic beef could give us the best global competitive advantage because of our unique Jamaican taste profile.

For too long we have been a producer of samples for export. Furthermore, we have not focused enough on building proactive approaches in international trade, as we consistently import four times more than we export.

Moreover, our rationale in crop selection is outdated, with unstable pricing for farmers and consumers, no cold storage, no secondary processing of primary produce, and no new technology. Worse, we still dump more than 30 per cent of our small farmer’s production due to a mismatch between demand and supply.

Yet we still rely on the 50-year-old concept of “eat what you grow and grow what you eat” in a globalised world with AI. However, most Jamaicans think that if we find a way to feed ourselves, growing everything we need will give us food security by making food more affordable and stopping our reliance on food imports. They are wrong, especially in today’s global economy, as it feeds the notion that we can produce every agricultural product cost-effectively.

Conditions such as terrain, the scale of production, and technology all play a significant role in cost determination. In 2021 Jamaicans ate approximately US$53 million worth of imported rice. Our soil cannot grow rice efficiently to feed our people. Should we try to use the land and grow rice for food security to stop importing it?

Maybe rather than subliminally seduce people continuously with the mantra of old slogan-oriented polices, we must go all in to incentivise this sector and our farmers to adapt to the new world of globalisation and technology, as the world will not be adapting to us.

The fact is: Jamaica has the resources to do better. Still, we need a different focus with a fresh set of agriculture objectives ensuring that efficient farmers make a good standard of living with guaranteed prices for farmers on priority crops, support for export agriculture and value-added products, lower food prices for Jamaicans, and building a school feeding programme to maximise the use of local produce.

Jamaica is blessed with great climate all year and is close to the US the largest market in the world.

The countries that have improved the standard of living the most for their people have been those focused on export. In 1980, China represented 1.1 per cent of the world’s export of goods. Forty years later, it is the worlds leading exporter representing 14.7 per cent. Their per capita income in 1980 was US$195.00. Today, it’s US$12,556.

I am sure if Michael Manley were alive today he would urge us to immediately reposition ourselves globally based on an accurate “foresight” of international opportunities and a careful analysis of the goods and services in which we have or can develop a sustained competitive advantage in a rapidly changing world. We must train our people with the skill sets and give them the incentives on the tools of the trade so they can invest in these niches. To succeed in exporting any of these products at even a one per cent world market share would transform Jamaica into the country we all yearn for.

We have been operating with our eyes wide shut for too long, relying on the residual spin-offs of Brand Jamaica without stimulating its sustainability with realistic resources and enterprising government policy.

Kodak missed their moment of digital opportunity, Blackberry is redundant, and AI is replacing agricultural jobs. Naive optimism has never been a good model for economic success. It’s time we stop walking backward into the future.

Lisa Hanna is Member of Parliament for St Ann South Eastern, People’s National Party spokesperson on foreign affairs and foreign trade, and a former Cabinet member.