THE Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS) said it is not convinced that the Government is as interested in the agricultural sector as it tries to portray, and has called for more attention to be paid to the sector if Jamaica’s food security means anything.

Lenworth Fulton, president of the JAS, said the sector is treated like a bad stepchild, turning off investors, and young farmers needed to move it into the 21st century.

“If you are a youngster and every time you turn on your television, or open your paper — the
Jamaica Observer or the others — and you only see one industry being propped up — tourism — [What are you going to be attracted to?]. We [have] built an economy based on financial services and tourism. Nobody is interested in agriculture. The PC banks are dead, [and] the commercial banks not giving any loans to us because nobody nuh business ‘bout agriculture,” Fulton told journalists at a Jamaica Observer Business Forum recently.

He added that despite the poor treatment meted out to the agriculture sector over decades, it still contributes about eight per cent to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) which rises to over 12 per cent when value added is considered. That puts agriculture in terms of its contribution to the economy in third place, behind only the Wholesale and Retail Trade, Repairs, Installation and Machinery & Equipment
and the Government Services sectors but well ahead of Hotels and Restaurants and the Finance and Insurance Services sector.

“It [the agricultural sector] needs more attention from Government, and I am not advocating for Government to take taxpayer money and give it to farmers,” Fulton continued. “What I want Government to do is to look at a set of policies to rebuild agriculture for the more than 250,000 farmers and their families who depend on them.”

He pointed to the decline in the production of a number of crops and the impact it has had on driving away young people from the usually busy farming communities to the cities or to take up ‘scamming’ or other criminal activities.

But even as he was unyielding in outlining what he sees as the state of agriculture in the country, Fulton turned to some policies he said he would like to see implemented and others he would like to see being reviewed to give farmers a chance. One such is the number of import licences signed to import food that is produced locally.

“You can’t just be signing import licences. Look on coffee. You know more coffee might be coming here from Colombia and Brazil than what we produce in Jamaica. We are importing the coffee. More coconut water is being imported into this country than we are producing here. What for?” he asked as he noted two examples of what he is talking about. He said even where policy decisions are made to increase production of certain crops, there has been failure in implementation. The project to plant out more than 3,000 acres of coconut trees that was envisioned more than a decade ago is one which came in for scrutiny.

“Ask them if they plant that. We are not planting anything,” he said.

Still, he points to what he deems the lack of fairness in the meat trade, where Jamaica’s meats face various hurdles that have made it almost impossible to enter the US market, while US producers can sell to Jamaica without barriers.

“If you name Mr Bad Man you move one chicken or one pound of pork into the US, and they are sending theirs here and we can’t send ours there. Every country protects their economy and protects their farmers. We are not saying they should not grant import licences. We are saying, like all other countries do, if you can produce the things here, put the money in our rural communities and in our farmers’ pocket, instead of in the pockets of farmers in Europe and North America.”

He contends that few people are speaking out against the issues that are being faced by farmers and fisherfolk and the impediments in their way.

“There is only one main agency in Jamaica that can give the views I am giving now, and it is only the Jamaica Agricultural Society and its affiliates.”

“When you look on where the powerhouse and which agencies are spending the money in agriculture, it is RADA (Rural Agricultural Development Authority) and JACRA (Jamaica Agricultural Commodities Regulatory Authority) and 4H Clubs. All of these have Government boards and the Government that is in power, whether PNP or JLP, put their strongmen… and I can tell you something, if a fish go to river bottom and tell you that a shark is down there, believe the fish. I have been to riverbottom. I was the executive director of the 4-H Club and CEO of RADA and now president of the JAS. So there is no other citizen who has been to the riverbottom as frequently and deeper than I have been. So they can’t talk. You can’t take up anybody out of RADA and get this interview that I am giving today. They would be fired immediately. Just like how I was fired,” Fulton pointed out. He said to this day he has not been told why he was dismissed from the post of CEO at RADA, but said he was paid off for the duration of the contract that he did not serve.

Turning to other policy issues he would love to see the Government undertaking, Fulton said more effort should go into attracting investors with deep pockets to agriculture.

“What I would expect now in terms of policy, is for the Government to develop something like some prospectus. A prospectus on coffee, on cocoa, [and] on banana [and so on] and market those prospectus to the private sector. Go to the Private Sector [Organisation of Jamaica]. Go to its leader, Mr Metry Seaga, and say, ‘Listen, here is a plan. If you can find a man in your private sector to do 10,000 acres of orange, we will give him the land. We will not charge him any lease for the land until the seventh year, and we will get him a loan at four per cent interest rate that will be fixed for seven years.’ Those are the things that we think that Government policy should do,” he said.

The general consumption tax (GCT) on table eggs also came in for scrutiny with Fulton calling it “misguided” and reiterating uncountable petitions for it to be rescinded in an effort to grow egg consumption. Jamaicans have one of the lowest egg consumption levels in the region with each person consuming on average, two eggs per week compared to five eggs per week per person in Trinidad and Tobago.

Then there is also the policy surrounding land use. Fulton said lease prices are rising fast for farmers who also have to bear the increasing costs of other inputs.

“For example, in Bernard Lodge, St Catherine, two years ago land was being leased for $8,000 an acre and now it is being leased for $20,000 per acre,” he pointed out.

The other policy readily coming to mind for him was agricultural education which he said is being reduced and robbing the country of an educated agricultural workforce.

Yet, Fulton was not the only one taking issues with the lack of attention being paid to the agriculture sector. Denton Alvaranga, first vice-president of the JAS, said there are opportunities that can be readily exploited with the right policies.

“There are two groups in which we are failing in, these are the legumes and cereals,” Alvaranga told the Business Observer. He said 80 per cent of the red peas consumed in Jaamaica is imported with a value of US$8 million, and he wants to see much more of that being produced on Jamaican farms.

“What we are saying is this, Jamaica has the capacity to produce legumes. Not only red peas. Why should we be importing things like gungo peas, cow peas and peanuts, our legumes so to generally speaking, when we can, to some degree, produce much more of the thing.

“The talk was that it was much cheaper to import red peas because of low productivity and lack of land space. Now here we are with thousands of underutilised and unused land, good agricultural land in Jamaica. Why can’t we, as a nation, embark on a national legumes programme. As a matter of fact, the JAS brought this to the Government four years ago and some initial work was done. Some consultation was done, a document was prepared and submitted to Government to look at and we have not seen any movement on that since it was submitted.”

Concerns were also raised about the availability and quality of planting material.

“Right now, most of the vegetable seeds that our farmers use to produce their crops are imported. When you look at what we have here, hot pepper, yes we produce that but it is very, very difficult at times to get the planting material for hot pepper. Irish potato, that is imported and it is seasonal. Ginger, we have a very serious problem with our planting material with rhizone rot [a disease]. Sweet potato, we have a very serious virus problem affecting the planting material.”

Alvaranga said while some work has been done on gene culture at Bodles Agricultural Research Station in St Catherine much more needs to be done to ensure Jamaica has clean planting material.

The level of research now being done at Bodles also came in for criticism from Dennis Budoo, technical consultant to the Cocoa Industry Board.

“What level of work have they taken on for research? Bodles is a concrete jungle, based on the potential that they have. The quality of infrastructure built by taxpayers’ money. R&D plays no role apart from having the name on a letterhead, research and development. Tell me what they are researching and what benefits farmers have gotten from the research that they should have been doing there.”

Other issues highlighted included marketing.

“Yes, for some crops you have good guaranteed markets but for others, we are in problem. Praedial larceny, land tenure, most farmers are working on capture land and they are on these lands for 20, 30 years, Government lands and don’t have a title. Other infrastructure, poor roads, lack of irrigation water, post-harvest losses and storage are other areas to fix. Some 80 per cent of farmers depend on rain water for irrigation,” Alvaranga added.

He said while he believes to “some degree” that the country can get agriculture right, he noted, “Maybe the political will is not there.”