The records showed that there are 4,000 km of farm roads in Jamaica serving over 300,000 small farmers and there are 10 irrigation systems in operation covering about 12 per cent of arable lands.

Land for the poor and landless was an outcome of Emancipation in 1838 where the Europeans where given the best agricultural lands of about 2,000 to 3,000 acres per parcel on which the Great Houses or citadels were located. These mansions were strategically sited as control centres to maintain colonial governance throughout the island.

The land evolution prompted by ex-slaves to seek economic gains by squatting on crown lands which became culturally accepted even to now, and governments haven’t solved this problem as yet. Quite recently squatters at Bernard Lodge in Portmore, St Catherine, presented a national crisis and the Government intervened.

On June 1, 1888, the Land Settlement Act came into being with bias to Europeans, but in 1938, the Moyne Commission was published and it referenced the 1930 Trinidad and Tobago riot and other land strifes in Jamaica. In 1939 the Land Settlement Scheme was instituted to rationalise land distribution for agriculture and dwellings. Emphasis was placed on access to health facilities, schools, churches and commercial centres. In 1938 the Jamaica Welfare Commission came into being to support community development but was replaced by the Social Development Commission in the post-Independence era.

The poor were given marginal lands through lease agreements with an option to practice agriculture, inclusive of dwelling purposes, but subdivision was not permitted. The recommended size of the lots was about 5 acres. Over many decades, these landholders allow their relatives to use portions of these lots which manifested in small dwellings which grew into present-day communities.

These communities must have access roads some of which are farm roads, other are parochial, National Works Agency (NWA) and unowned roads. The over 4,000 km of farm roads have no clear maintenance plan and prior to 2014, financial support from the production incentive programme for maintenance but was vested to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining (MOAF&M) from the national budget.

However, in 2015, former Minister of Agriculture Derrick Kellier asked the Ministry of Finance and Public Service to create a budget head for farm roads of which Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) was vested with the authority to manage. It’s customary for farm roads to be allocated between $500 million to $1 billion annually for repairs, but the true requirement is that about $6 billion is needed per year for maintenance, which explains poor road conditions compounded by political influence through RADA Parish Advisory Committees, which are often chaired by political activists including parish councillors.

Roads for repair are selected on inexplicable basis and those dual types that serve populated areas as well as farm areas will get preference and farm roads that serve highly agricultural productive areas might not gain favour over political considerations — voters over food security.

RADA doesn’t have a fully developed road engineering unit to effect quality repairs nor to design new roads especially since agroparks became priority production zones where access roads are one of the deliverables.

Jamaica has about 200,000 hectares of arable lands of which only 31,000 hectares are irrigated but only about 100,000 hectares are needed to fulfill our current food security needs.

There are irrigation plans in various stages of implementation such as Essex Valley and Pedro Plains schemes which combined can supply irrigation to about 6,000 hectares of fertile farm lands. But it’s clear that National Irrigation Commission (NIC) lack the capacity to expand its systems fast enough to bring irrigated lands from the present 15 per cent ( 31,000 hectares) to 50 per cent (100,000 hectares) of arable lands.

NIC is in existence from 1986 and inherited schemes such as Bernard Lodge, St Dorothy, mid- Clarendon from the colonial government and installed Hounslow, Braco, Yallahs and Plantain Garden River.

In the same way National Water Commission (NWC) has announced plans to develop public-private partnership (PPP) to harness and distribute domestic water from Rio Cobre sources to St Catherine and western areas in Kingston, the NIC can pursue PPP in places like Essex Valley and Pedro Plains in St Elizabeth as a pilot project.

New thinking is required if agriculture is to boost the gross domestic product (GDP) and realise enhanced productivity. The excess liquidity in the economy could be channelled into large irrigation projects which would help to control inflation and facilitate agricultural productivity.

The road puzzle needs simplification as well. There are three government agencies in charge of our roads — NWA, RADA and parish councils all in different ministries using different engineering standards. The time is right for unification and standardisation under one national road entity.

These roads that have no ownership must be placed under the management of an entity responsible for roads. Some of these roads were farm roads but housing developers built the areas into residential spaces without handing over the roads to the parish councils or the NWA.