WHILE acknowledging that there is a shortage of agricultural workers in Jamaica, Minister of Labour Pearnel Charles Jr says the Government will be moving cautiously in its response to this challenge.

According to Charles Jr, while the Government is looking at measures to address the issue, there is need for factual data in order to know what this scarcity entails and to better guide policy decisions.

“In this financial year we will have to have more conversation around the actual specifics of what the shortage that we speak of is, so it requires data. We have a lot of general conversation around this issue but we need more accurate data to guide the decisions and the policies, and so that’s a part of the conversation that we are having,” he said during a post-sectoral debate media briefing at his ministry on Thursday.

Charles Jr told journalists that to begin addressing the issue, he and Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining Minister Floyd Green will be having a meeting very soon to engage in discussions.

He said he would be speaking with his Cabinet colleague on collaboration around the preparation of workers for the overseas employment programme and how those persons who are neither approved nor sent overseas will be able to be integrated into work in Jamaica.

“The goal is for us to see the farm work [programme] as an opportunity to gain skills that become transferable and useful to Jamaica. We want persons to go up to Canada and to learn how to operate and design and all the procedures with greenhouses, and can come back and help Jamaica to become more climate resilient,” said Charles Jr.

He added that the Government also wants to be able to train and prepare Jamaican workers who can have the opportunity to be exposed to, and also return to Jamaica and utilise new, modern techniques to the benefit of their own farms, or to whichever farm that they are working on in Jamaica.

“One of the things we’re also doing is collaborating, not just with the Ministry of Agriculture, but with the HEART/NSTA Trust to see how together we can identify the programmes[and] the training that will be more specific to the needs of the sectors in our country, not just agriculture, but any sector where we see that there is deficiency in identifying the right skill set,” added Charles Jr.

The minister told the media briefing that there are also plans to use the work permit arrangement with foreigners in Jamaica to the country’s benefit.

“Persons are permitted to come and to work [and] we welcome skilled persons into our country. A big part of what we’re doing moving forward, is to welcome them in and then to put as part of the consideration that those skills be transferred to a Jamaican, so that we will be able to follow in the next year with the Jamaicans who can fill those positions,” he said.

President of the Jamaica Agricultural Society Lenworth Fulton recently charged that the scarcity of farm labour is a result of poor farm infrastructure including lack of sanitary convenience, poor access roads, irregular work, primitive farm operations, among other things.

Fulton argued that these impediments need modernisation and investments in the sector, firstly to afford labour, secondly to attract workers especially since the national unemployment rate is the lowest in history.

“Farm labour also has options in areas with better working conditions like construction, vending, transportation and security industries being similarly classified as low skill labour pool that would benefit from upskilling and training through HEART/NSTA, Rural Agricultural Development Authority, Jamaica Agricultural Society and 4-H [which provides training to people between the ages of five and 25 in agriculture]. The agriculture workforce must now be a priority and needs study to guide both Government and the farming sector as to how to address the problem,” said Fulton.