Papine High in St Andrew on Wednesday opened a greenhouse that the principal, Leighton Christie, said will produce crops for the benefit of his campus and other schools in the capital city while generating income.

“Our dream here at Papine High School is to have a high-quality facility in the Corporate Area that can extend to the high schools who are doing agriculture [and] the primary schools that are doing agriculture — that is our vision. These facilities we have here, as we grow, we are growing in a way that students can come and benefit from it,” Christie said at the official opening of the project.

“The initiative is intended to increase the availability of locally grown nutritious produce and to generate economic opportunities for unemployed youth and marginalised community members. It will also equip students with an understanding of modern agricultural technology, thereby guaranteeing their preparedness for the evolving agricultural sector,” the principal added.

Praising the school for its achievements, including producing its own callaloo and cucumber shampoos, lotions, body wash, and honey, Christie said the greenhouse offers a platform to enhance and expand the school’s production capacity in the future.

Agriculture, Fisheries, and Mining Minister Floyd Green, in his address, encouraged the students to pursue careers in agriculture and capitalise on the opportunity to make “serious” money in a sector that is changing and becoming more modern.

Stating that Jamaica currently earns about US$50 million and US$37 million annually from yam and ackee exports, respectively, Green said the agriculture ministry has been embarking on a strategy aimed at changing how agriculture is viewed.

“Our four strategic priorities are around food security, agribusiness development, climate smart technology, and export expansion, and this ticks all of the boxes because what we’re really saying to our young people is, let’s go out there, do agriculture and make some money because… agriculture is a business and I want to say to you, young people, you can make real money in agriculture,” he said.

The project involves the installation of a 30-foot by 50-foot greenhouse equipped with a closed loop nutrient film technique hydroponic system which uses layers of nutrient-rich water to grow plants.

The project was sponsored by Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF) at a cost of US$25,000 under its small grants programme, making Papine High the first school in the Caribbean to receive a grant from CCRIF for this type of initiative.

Noting the importance of the project to the modernisation of agriculture, Minister Green said that more efforts will be to provide increased support for teachers and school administrators in order that more schools can benefit from similar projects.

“The ministry plans to engage our agricultural teachers because they are truly the ones that are forming the perceptions of agriculture, especially at the secondary level, and we want to provide them with more support. We want to help them with their school farms [and] we want to see if we can work with CCRIF to put in more of these structures in schools so that our students are not learning agriculture of 10 years ago, but they’re learning agriculture for now,” he said.

He added that changing the approach to agriculture is not just for economic benefit but to better equip farmers with the tools to adapt to climate change.

“Why this greenhouse is so critical is because we all know the climate has changed, and if we know that the climate has changed and we’re seeing longer droughts and we’re seeing more extensive periods of rainfall, then we can’t farm the same way and expect the same results. We have to adapt how we farm, and the truth is, our young people want to see a different type of farming,” said Green.

During the launch, sixth-former Terome Rookwood could not hide his excitement, stating that the greenhouse will be a big help for his academic development as an aspiring farmer.

“I have been a part of the 4H Club and involved in agriculture for a good while and I grow up mainly on agriculture, so it’s a wonderful experience to know that with hydroponics you can grow things without soil, so it’s a wonderful advance in the growing process of agriculture itself and it’s a wonderful area to venture into, knowing that a lot of people who have limited land space to plant, doing hydroponics will give them a benefit knowing that you do not use a lot of land space but more water,” Terome said.

He urged more students to explore careers in agriculture, testifying that it is both enjoyable and offers the potential for substantial income.

“Agriculture is like being a part of nature itself… you get that physical aspect and you can make a lot of money from it, which is also good too, especially in a world where agriculture is now changing,” said Terome.