STUDENTS from St Mary High School and White Marl Primary School were recently given the opportunity to engage directly with the top officials at the ministries of agriculture and education during a farm tour facilitated by commercial agriculture leader JP Farms in St Mary.

Following a visit to JP Farms to observe the newly relaunched farm school tour programme in action, Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Floyd Green and state minister of education and youth Marsha Smith endorsed the educational programme and expressed interest in collaborating for more public-private partnerships.

Minister Green highlighted the students’ active participation, stating, “The children were excellent; you could see they were engaged and enjoyed it. Their questions ranged from the chemical components used in safe and sustainable farming to the methods of planting, showing a keen interest in the subject.”

Following a brief pause in 2020 with the onset of COVID-19 and the TR4 banana threat, JP Farms resumed offering tours of its 500-acre farms to schools across Jamaica free of cost. Students are given the opportunity to visit and sample fruits from the farm’s expansive pineapple, banana and plantain fields in Annotto Bay, St Mary.

According to JP Farms General Manager Mario Figueroa, the tours are being offered five days a week and will continue into the summer to accommodate summer school trips and into the new school year. He continued, “We want to introduce students to the process behind seeing their favourite fruits on the supermarket shelf and in their lunch kits. At the same time, we also want to expose them to the wide range of career opportunities in agriculture.”

During the tour, students had the unique opportunity to engage with not only the ministers but also members of the JP Farms’ board of directors including Charles Johnston, chairman of Jamaica Producers Group; Stephen Facey, chairman of Pan Jamaica Group; and Jeffrey Hall, CEO and deputy chairman of Pan Jamaica Group who joined the day’s activities. These interactions allowed the students to gain first-hand insights from some of Jamaica’s leading figures in business, agriculture and education.

In applauding JP Farms for its forward-thinking approach, Minister Green said, “An initiative of this nature is essential and fundamental for the future of agriculture. I want to commend JP for starting this project, where they will be introducing students to actual life on the farm, and not just the practical side but showing agriculture as a science and the cutting-edge technology used. JP Farms has been around for such a long time and has evolved in those times [so] they are very well-placed to do a programme like this.”

Minister Green also addressed the recent announcement regarding the suspension of the Agricultural Science Double Award at the CSEC level, emphasising the need for consultations with the Ministry of Education and Youth. He pointed to the importance of distinguishing between the single award and double award which incorporates agriculture and horticulture, noting significant growth in the latter and the need to capture this momentum through collaborative efforts between the private sector and educational programmes.

The programme’s emphasis on technology and science in agriculture is intended to inspire young people to consider diverse careers within the sector. Field roles, administrative roles and technical roles such as engineers, crop experts, disease specialists, and quality control experts are among those highlighted on the tours.

According to Collin Chen, teacher of Environmental Science and Agricultural Science at St Mary High School, and Farah Brown, teacher of grades four to five at White Marl Primary in Spanish Town, students become more engaged in their studies after having out-of-classroom experiences like the tours being offered by JP Farms.

“As an educator, I have found students lose focus after a while on the chalkboard aspect of learning. Through tours of this nature, I find both teachers and students are more equipped with knowledge gained first-hand and it gets them into focus,” Brown remarked.

Hall welcomed the endorsement by the ministers and shared his delight with the students’ interest, noting, “It was remarkable to witness the enthusiasm of children from as young as nine years old to 17 years old armed with questions. This initiative is a testament to JP Farms’ dedication to innovation and education in agriculture. The team we have is equally enthusiastic and we want to continue setting a precedent for future agricultural education initiatives.”