KINGSTON, Jamaica – The National Irrigation Commission (NIC) is looking to update its national irrigation development plan, which was done more than 20 years ago.

This was disclosed by Director of Engineering and Technical Services at the NIC, Rohan Stewart, during a recent Jamaica Information Service (JIS) television programme, ‘Get the Facts’.

“It would have had about 50 or so areas that we thought could use irrigation systems. Things have changed, we need to get it updated, and that is one of the plans that we have,” Stewart said.

“We are implementing some of those projects now… and we have some that are in the pre-investment stage, where we are now determining and these are areas like Yallahs in St Thomas; Lennox/Lower Leyton in Portland, and Lucky Hill Pen in St Mary. Those projects, over time, will come to the fore and then we’ll be able to bring water to those areas where persons are doing some farming now,” he added.

The National Irrigation Development Plan (Master Plan) was commissioned by the Government of Jamaica in 1998 to identify irrigation projects islandwide and to prioritise areas for development.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Government of Jamaica jointly financed the study.

Meanwhile, Stewart said the NIC has planned, in all its projects going forward, to have solar systems as a renewable energy source included.

He informed that currently, the commission has just over a megawatt of solar systems installed, both at its offices and pumping stations.

“So, we are definitely serious about that. We also [are] encouraging our customers to become more efficient at what they do. These schemes that we are now rolling out, part of those schemes have a component that provides the farmer with on-farm equipment that helps them to be able to reduce the need for [a lot of water],” Stewart said.

– JIS