Dear Editor,

I write today not just with dismay, but also a growing sense of alarm. A recent news clip showing Jamaican pok choi and pumpkin going to waste is not an isolated incident of bad luck, it is a symptom of a profound and dangerous failure in our approach to national food security. In an era of global instability, climate emergencies like Hurricane Melissa, and looming threats to international trade, the sight of our own nutritious food rotting in fields is nothing short of a national scandal.

We are trapped in a paradox. We are simultaneously told to “Eat what we grow” while our markets are flooded with imported produce, and our farmers are left without reliable markets for their harvest. This reliance on foreign supermarkets and the charity of other nations is not a policy — it is a vulnerability. As global tensions rise and supply chains falter, this dependency becomes a direct threat to every Jamaican family’s ability to put food on the table.

The bitter irony is that the solutions are not mysteries. They are documented in our own National Food and Nutrition Security Policy, which clearly advocates for “the optimum degree of self-reliance”. This policy wisely calls for a national network of emergency food stocks and stresses the need for value-added production.

Where is the urgent action? Where are the centralised processing and packaging facilities that could turn today’s surplus pumpkins into tomorrow’s canned purees, soups, or school meals? The successful model of adding value, as seen in the ginger initiative supported by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), proves this can work. It must be scaled and applied to our vegetable farmers immediately.

Furthermore, we must embrace technology, not as a luxury, but as a shield. Investment in climate-resilient, indoor, and hydroponic farming systems is no longer optional, it is critical infrastructure. These methods can protect our food supply from hurricanes and droughts, ensuring consistent production year-round. Especially in light of talks to make St Elizabeth, our food basket, the first parish to have a smart city, it would be smart to equip the parish with the best farming technology and gear via grants and such.

Therefore, I urge the Government to move beyond rhetoric and declare food sovereignty a matter of national security. This requires:

1) immediate investment in agro-processing: Establish and fund grant programmes for cooperatives to build facilities for drying, canning, and packaging surplus produce.

2) activating the strategic food reserve: Legislate and fund the national food stockpile promised in policy to buffer against price shocks and disasters.

3) acceleration of support for climate-smart farms: Create accessible subsidy and training programmes for farmers to adopt hydroponic and protected agriculture technologies.

4) enacting a food security law: Mandate concrete targets for reducing import dependency and increasing the consumption of locally grown staples.

The wasted pok choi is more than a lost crop; it is a lost opportunity and a glaring warning. We have the land, the farmers, and the know-how. What we lack is the decisive political will to treat food security with the urgency it deserves. Let us stop leaving our nation’s nourishment to chance and foreign hands. Let us build a resilient, self-reliant Jamaica from the ground up.

A concerned citizen