KINGSTON, Jamaica— Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining, Floyd Green, is encouraging Jamaicans to support local farmers by eating Jamaican all year round.

The minister, who was speaking in a recent JIS ‘Get the Facts’ interview, said the COVID-19 pandemic brought into sharp focus the importance of investing in the agricultural sector by supporting local farmers and fishermen.

“During COVID-19 one of the fundamental questions was ‘will we be able to feed ourselves?’ People never thought that the world could close its borders and that’s what happened and, automatically, everybody started to think about their own food security,” Green said.

“Now, the only way we’ll be able to effectively feed ourselves is if we consistently encourage our farmers and fishers; that’s what eating Jamaican is about. It’s about going out and making the right decisions to support your own by ensuring there is a demand,” he added.

Minister Green said consuming local food is more beneficial to the population.

“Outside of supporting our farmer and fishers, quite frankly, it’s just better for us. When we consume imported food we don’t know the process it’s been through, we don’t know what they’ve used largely to preserve it. It’s not as fresh, and fresh is always best,” he noted.

“We’ve been pushing for a long time that you should say yes to fresh, and the best way to do that is to eat Jamaican all year round,” he added.

The minister noted that the country is self-sufficient in certain produce, and others are being prioritised.

“We have developed sufficiency in relation to our vegetable lines and our fruits. We are self-sufficient in relation to poultry, but we do depend significantly still on overseas food, which is something we have to work on. We are also self-sufficient in relation to pigs; our pork sector feeds all our local demand,” he said.

He disclosed that the ministry is focused on gaining self-sufficiency in Irish potato and onion production.

“We do prioritise things like Irish potato, where we are trying to meet 100 per cent of the demand and we have prioritised onions, as over the years we’ve consumed a lot of onions per capita. We are now up to about 30 per cent of our local consumption and we want to get to about 100 per cent over the next three to four years,” he said.

-JIS