I want Jamaica not only to survive with anemic economic growth but also to prevail as a global titan competing with the best economies on the world stage, despite our small size and population. But this will not happen with speeches. And, what’s more, raw talent alone is not enough to monetise the opportunities available.

We need a structured plan that is specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) to take us there.

The broad-based import substitution policy still being pursued today is a dead-end for several industries and has not built local industries to scale, created an export-driven economy, or led to any significant export of manufactured goods despite substantial duty protection.

For example, our sugar industry has had protectionist policies since 1971. The duty rate on imported sugar is 128.2 per cent. But what are we really protecting?

Back in the 1970s we had over 300,000 people working in the sugar industry in factories. Fifty years later, in 2024, we have maybe two sugar-producing factories that may employ 1,500 people. That figure represents our sugar industry today; many of our large hotels on the north coast absorb more employees.

This stale policy does not give us any scale in sugar production, resulting in 3 million Jamaicans paying 2 1/2 times the price of sugar daily to the world market.

Another policy stifling our local productive yields and keeping prices high for Jamaicans is the The Cattle Control Act, which was put through Parliament in 1890 to prevents anyone from bringing in cows from any country in the world without the approval of the veterinarian department of the Government.

Our people should be able to afford protein for good nutrition, especially our children. However, we do not have enough milk production.

Recently, I spoke with the CEO of Musson Group, P B Scott, who told me that milk production in Jamaica is down. Serge Island Milk is produced locally by the group from its farm of 6,000 cows. He lamented that our cows only produce 11 litres of milk, sometimes less daily. In Honduras, a cow produces up to 20 litres daily. In New Zealand, it produces up to 35 litres.

He argues that, in countries like New Zealand, the genetics of the cows have been improved, and their conditions are less stressful, so their yields are higher. However, we cannot improve the genetics of our cattle dairy herds as it is difficult, near impossible, to get the approvals from the Ministry of Agriculture.

The same rules apply to animal sperm, which is prohibited under the Animals (Artificial Insemination Control) Act 1950. As a result of the lack of genetic improvements in our cattle breeding, our cows — which could produce 20 litres of milk — are making 11 litres and below, thus driving down the supply of local milk and pushing prices higher.

Added to these archaic policies is the 1926 Agricultural Produce Act. The world is very different today, but we still think small, stuck in policies that have been in place for 100 years, which are protectionist.

There are over 200,000 farmers in Jamaica, representing the largest source of employment. Our goal should be to improve the standard of living for our small farmers and, through their linkages with other sectors, increase local production, increase employment, and income in all sectors of the economy. Yet our prevailing backward agricultural policies have reduced exports, created price instability for farmers and consumers, built little or no cold storage, established no secondary processing of primary produce, and failed to add new technology. Worse, we still dumped over 30 per cent of our small farmers’ production due to a mismatch between demand and supply.

We need an urgent plan to structurally transform Jamaica’s economy into an internationally competitive, value-added export country focusing on products and services in which we can identify a global competitive advantage, controlling all the inputs in our value chain from raw materials to finished goods.

Therefore, in this world of free trade, we must establish specialised niche markets.

Moving forward, we should be laser-focused and provide support to agricultural products that have export markets and value-added potential. Our pepper, ginger, cocoa, coffee, ackee, papaya, romaine lettuce, avocados, and organic beef could give us the best global competitive advantage because of our unique Jamaican taste profile. Let choose one and go all in!

To succeed in any one of them at even a 1 per cent market share would transform Jamaica into the country we all say we yearn for. The global hot sauce market will be valued at US$6.4 billion by 2027. Hot sauce in the US achieved annual revenues of US$ 1 billion. In addition, Tobasco sells over US$200 million worth of its products in 166 countries worldwide, and one set containing three bottles of its signature hot sauces retails at roughly US$30.00.

Why are we not rivalling Tobasco? Why are we not the world beaters in pepper sauce? Why are we not incentivising our farmers to plant scotch bonnet with the plants and technology?

Let us build a globally competitive Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP)-approved National agro-processing facility, list it on the Jamaica Stock Exchange and seed it with capital, appoint competent management to run the place, and then divest it to our Jamaican shareholders for them to have ownership.

By making this decisions, we would signal to the world the importance of the Jamaican brand while protecting it from being exploited by other countries.

China’s population is approximnately 1.3 billion — more than four times the US. Our market of three million does nothing to advance the Chinese economy in any meaningful way. But consider this: If Jamaica could appeal to 5 per cent of the Chinese population with our sauces, that would be 65 million purchasers. At US$20 per product, per person, per annum, that would be US$130 million in annual sales.

The time is urgent for us to become global producers of Jamaican-branded products the world loves and yearns for, rather than promoting high-protection regimes that only reduce scale and production, keep local prices high, and prevent us from becoming global competitors in agriculture.

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.