The colonial government of Jamaica depended significantly on agriculture to feed the people and for export to Europe.

These two broad objectives (food security and export) were contingent on growth strategies with the following features: Financial support, access to land, markets, irrigation, good labour force and supportive government policies.

Currently, government agricultural growth initiatives are promoted through ‘ The New Face Of Food’ which straddles five broad objectives: Export, import substitution, climate smart technology, agribusiness expansion, and food security.

Importantly, the new face of food doesn’t highlight inputs like financing, irrigation, land access, markets and available labour. Nor is youth involvement taken seriously.

In our recent history, youth was a major plank of the agricultural planning process where lands were made available to them and the political directorate had promised to encourage graduates from agricultural colleges to go into agriculture as a business, but both land access and finance proved to be obstacles.

The Jamaica 4H Clubs is tasked with introducing youth to agriculture but most clubites are from primary and secondary schools, too young to be commercial farmers.

Irrigation development must be paramount in any agricultural growth strategy, and in 1870 design work began for the Rio Cobre dam and construction started in 1872 and completed in 1876. This was done to supply irrigation water to 30,000 acres of lands to the south, particularly Bernard Lodge and St Catherine plains.

By the 1940s other irrigation schemes were developed like St Dorothy and the mid-Clarendon system. In 1949, the National Irrigation Act became law with the mandate to manage irrigation systems and to develop future schemes. In 1986, the National Irrigation Commission was developed from the 1949 Act to manage all public irrigation systems in Jamaica and to expand on them.

Other schemes were developed in the post-Independence period like Hounslow in St Elizabeth, Braco in Trelawny, Yallahs and Plantain Garden River in St Thomas. Essex Valley irrigation system in St Elizabeth began in 2014 and is still incomplete.

Water harvesting is an important element of agriculture because most of Jamaica doesn’t have surface water or underground water sources, which make micro dams, ponds and other catchment construct vital to sustainable agriculture. Some of these water storage types were introduced to Jamaica in the 1970s and 80s.

The new face of agriculture doesn’t highlight adequate financing above the budgetary allocations annually which in most year is below 1 per cent of the budgets except for 2024 where the allocation was 1.4 per cent of the budget ($14 billion). Loans to agriculture in 2022 were miniscule amount of $147 million. This loan portfolio is the lower than other industries like tourism, manufacturing, transportation, etc.

Besides, earlier governments prior to 1962 made budgetary allocations of up to 12 per cent of their annual budgets available to agriculture to spur growth in the sector. It’s during this period that the traditional crops were expanded along with the cattle industry.

The broiler subsector took shape in the post-Independence era when the Jamaica Broilers company revolutionised poultry farming and there after the Caribbean Broilers began operations. It’s important to note that there have been successful growth strategies since 1962, but one is needed now more than ever.

Land access must be integral to growth in agriculture and the institutions designated to put lands in the possession of farmers have been experiencing numerous challenges. Land capturing is frequent at agroparks and other properties managed by Sugar Corporation of Jamaica Holdings (SCJ Holdings). But the complaints continue to mount for difficulties to get access to lands at reasonable lease rates and with proper amenities like access roads, irrigation, storage and security to battle praedial larceny.

In the 1980s, the government of the day introduced Project Land Lease in three phases for different target groups. Lands were leased at pepper corn rates. Land lease phase 3 offered lease and sale arrangements and farmers could build dwelling houses on these lands.

SCJ Holdings and Agricultural Investment Cooperation (AIC) are under the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Mining (MOAF&M) but other land management agencies are under different ministries that owned agricultural lands such as National Land Agency (NLA), Jamaica Railway Corporation, and National Irrigation Commission (NIC). Any growth strategy must simplify land access through longer-term lease at reasonable rates.

Objectives like climate-smart agriculture and agribusiness expansion are worthy of consideration but are not feasible without research and financial support as parts of a congenial growth plan.

In the 1980s to early 2000s, there were agriculture growth strategies for banana resuscitation mainly driven by the advent of the Jamaica Producers Group that planted about 8,000 acres of banana and brought production up to 150,000 tonnes. Also Banana Export Company (BECO) was an efficiently managed marketing company that could be compared to Tate and Lyle in marketing sugar a few decades ago.

These marketing entities are all gone along with the commodity cooperatives that marketed cocoa, pimento, coffee and citrus leaving a void that the new face of agriculture needs to address urgently.

The dismal performance of agriculture that is evidenced by rapidly raising import bill of US$1.6 billion, high prices for all types of foods, vegetables and fruits in the markets and food distribution businesses.

Although chicken supply is adequate and at a moderate price, other meats are pricey and scarce in supply like goat meat (chevron) and fish.

While there is the Fisheries Authority to link fisherfolk and other fisheries interests to government machinery, there is no such small ruminant government entity to facilitate the Small Ruminant Association to get optimum benefits from government.

Other livestock associations like the Cattle Breeders Societies, though a private membership organisation like the Small Ruminant Association, has cattle centres like Minard and Mountpelier to support the cattle breeders work.

Bodles Research Station could be developed as the Caribbean goat, sheep and rabbits centre with a special celebratory day like the Minard Cattle show.

For a growth plan to work for the ruminant subsector, it would be diserable to revisit the structure of the Veterinary Division; it’s currently a regulatory body with limited clinical outputs and of little help to small and medium livestock farmers.

The Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) called for a new growth strategy to chart an expansion path for the economy and farmers are calling on MOAF&M to design a practical agricultural growth strategy with farmers’ inputs to address Jamaica food security deficiency, foreign exchange challenges and to support rural development.

Although the new face of agriculture is a good initiative, it lacks practicality and gravitas to solve the country’s food insecurity.

– By Lenworth Fulton