Agriculture Minister Floyd Green says the Government’s latest climate resilience push is aimed at placing practical support directly into farmers’ hands, with women, youth, and small holders among the roughly 700,000 expected to benefit from more advanced training, climate-smart tools, and improved access to financing under the ADAPT Jamaica programme.

The initiative, approved by the Green Climate Fund, is expected to target six central parishes that account for about 70 per cent of domestic food production and have been repeatedly exposed to drought, storms, land degradation, and weak access to irrigation and finance.

Speaking at a press conference at the Office of the Prime Minister on Monday, Green emphasised that resilience can no longer mean simply helping farmers recover after disaster, as he framed the programme as an opportunity to tackle deeper structural weaknesses in agriculture.

“The ADAPT Jamaica programme is designed to tackle our systematic barriers to resilience in agriculture. We will focus on four main areas: firstly, climate resilient agriculture and food loss and waste; we do lose about 30 to 40 per cent of the food that we produce now in our agricultural ecosystem. The second area will focus on strengthening climate information services, the third area on policy and institutional strengthening, and the fourth on investment ready financing solutions,” Green said.

The programme’s geographic focus also reflects where the Government believes the stakes are highest. Green reiterated that Clarendon, Trelawny, Manchester, St Ann, St Catherine, and St Elizabeth were selected based on historical losses linked to the impact of Hurricane Melissa, which hit sections of the island last October, and Hurricane Beryl which sideswiped central and south-western parishes in July 2024.

He said the project will place a lot of emphasis on showing farmers what works in real time, rather than relying only on theory or long-term policy plans.

“At the farm level this project is designed to be practical, visible and scalable so we will look to develop model farms and farm clusters where we will deploy climate resilient solutions to show them work in real time, including things like solar-powered irrigation, reinforced greenhouses that are designed to withstand stronger storms, efficient water management systems such as drip irrigation especially for our vulnerable farmers,” Green said.

He added that the programme is also expected to improve the flow of weather and crop information to farmers, with a climate information system being designed to give more timely guidance on changing conditions in the field. This, he said, is intended to help farmers make better decisions as weather patterns become increasingly unpredictable.

Green also pointed to financing as a key part of the intervention, acknowledging that access to capital remains a major barrier for many farmers.

“At the same time, a portion of these funds will be routed through the Development Bank of Jamaica (DBJ) to ensure that farmers, especially small holder farmers, have greater access to capital to be able to invest in their agricultural enterprise,” Green said.

The programme will also place a deliberate focus on groups that often face greater barriers within the sector, including women and young people, as part of a wider effort to make adaptation support more inclusive.

“We’ll focus on things like crop zoning, targeted inclusion strategies; we’re going to be focusing on our women [and] we’re going to be focusing on our youth to ensure that underserved groups have equitable access,” Green said.

The agriculture minister also disclosed that part of the project has been tailored to respond directly to the damage caused by Hurricane Melissa, with planned support expected to include cash transfers, a cash-for-work component and the development of a major irrigation system.

However, Green cautioned that farmers should not expect the full benefits of the programme to materialise overnight, noting that implementation is expected to unfold over several years.

“The first year is normally collecting your baselines to ensure identifying the communities that you will directly target. We’ll do that over the first year and then roll out implementation in years two, three, and four and use the last few years to ensure that we are monitoring, evaluating, and scaling our project,” Green said.

Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF) Managing Director Omar Sweeney also addressed the news conference, saying farmers are expected to begin seeing benefits during the first year, even if the programme is still in its early stages. He said the project will build on groundwork already done under the Rural Economic Development Initiative (REDI), which has already identified a cohort of farmers and is awaiting support.

He also said the initiative is expected to push Jamaica further towards greenhouse and sheltered agriculture, while scaling up cold storage and changing how farmers think about production and marketing.

The ADAPT Jamaica programme was formally announced after the Green Climate Fund approved nearly US$50 million for the initiative, making it one of the most significant climate-focused agriculture investments secured by Jamaica to date.

The programme is expected to reach more than 736,000 beneficiaries, including over 334,000 women, and will involve support from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, JSIF, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining, and the Development Bank of Jamaica.