The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining has announced a specialised support programme designed to revitalise the yam sector, following the devastation caused by Hurricane Melissa which slammed into Jamaica on October 28 last year.

Portfolio Minister Floyd Green provided details during a recent press conference at the ministry’s head office at Hope Gardens, St Andrew.

He said that the programme will focus on soil recovery, as teams from the Agricultural Land Management Division have already gone out into the fields to complete assessment to address the salt burn and nutrient depletion that affected hilly terrain, where yam cultivation is typically done.

“We wanted to ensure that the soil still had the same nutrient content and to design our fertiliser regime, our nutritional regime, to particularly cater to what we were seeing,” Green said, emphasising the importance of using a data-driven approach.

He added that the ministry has already started distributing more than 5,000 bags of granular fertiliser to support yam farmers.

In addition to the traditional crop support, Minister Green outlined plans to target protected agriculture. This includes assisting greenhouse farmers to replace their protective plastics and establishing approximately 32 new greenhouses.

“Some of them are going to be focused on nursery production so that we have the planting material to continue to drive the recovery,” he said.

Additionally, as part of the ministry’s efforts to build back better, it plans on acquiring modular tower farms for cultivation.

“One of the things that we saw in Hurricane Melissa was one of our tower farmers in Jamaica was able to easily dismantle his farm, pack it up in his storeroom, and as soon as Melissa passed, to re-establish his farm,” Green said.

Noting that tower farms require less space and are portable, he said the ministry is procuring approximately 250 tower farms that will be distributed to open field farmers, schools and urban farmers.

“[This is] so that we can start the process of building agriculture better. This is literally about building back better, stronger, and more resilient,” he maintained.