PORTLAND, Jamaica—To help drive the resuscitation of the egg industry following Hurricane Melissa, Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining, Floyd Green, has committed $30 million to support egg farming at the College of Agriculture, Science and Education (CASE) in Portland.

Speaking at a Founders’ Weekend event at the institution on January 31, the minister said that the funds are to be used to rebuild the hatchery and build a pullet house, in order for Jamaica to produce more layers.

“We know that after Hurricane Beryl (in 2024), our egg sector suffered a blow. We lost about 40,000 birds and we were struggling. Then came Hurricane Melissa (in October 2025), when we lost over 400,000 birds. That’s a major blow of over 40 per cent of our egg industry,” the minister shared.

He reasoned that Jamaica was, for a long time, self-sufficient in egg production but the sector is being significantly challenged by back-to-back weather events.

To this end, he stated that the nation must build capacity and build resilience, “and one of the places that we must do it, is an institution like CASE”.

“So, we met with our broiler companies, and they have committed to us that we should have another 300,000 pullets by May/June, but we want to get CASE in on that mix. And CASE has committed that with the support, they’ll be able to produce about 60,000, which will go a far way to help us rebuild such an important sector,” Green said.

He also highlighted the importance of driving some of the rebuilding of the nation to parishes on the country’s north coast, like Portland, given that the last hurricanes and storms to affect Jamaica travelled along the south coast.

“So, resilience and diversification means also looking at your weather patterns and strengthening areas that might be better placed to manage these things,” the minister underscored, while pledging that the ministry will continue to support CASE.

Founded in 1910, CASE is the island’s leading institution for agricultural education at the tertiary level.

-JIS