Member of Parliament for St Ann South Eastern, Lisa Hanna says the ‘eat what we grow’ agricultural policy first advanced by former Prime Minister Michael Manley is no longer relevant.

Making her contribution to the Sectoral Debate in Gordon House on Tuesday, Hanna noted that her comments were likely to make ‘people’s back get up’ but, despite this, said it was necessary to say, as she charged that the over 50-year-old agricultural policy was no longer meaningful based on Jamaica’s present reality.

“When Michael Manley came out with, ‘eat what you grow and grow what you eat’, it was relevant to that time. It was 50 years ago, and it was a concept because of the prevailing economic, global circumstances which actually forced us to look inward; to plant and feed for ourselves. Fifty years later, with globalisation, that concept is not focusing outwards,” Hanna said.

“And what we really ought to be saying is support our farmers, grow efficiently and export for wealth creation, madam speaker. Because, moving forward, the philosophy proposes that we can plant everything but we don’t have the conditions or the terrain to plant everything for ourselves,” she continued.

“And so, people get confused that if we plant everything, then we don’t have to import anything. It’s not true. We can’t plant rice efficiently; we just don’t have the mechanism to plant rice. The other things that we can’t plant efficiently but I’m not going to say that because some people feel that they’re planting them efficiently,” Hanna added with a chuckle.

Hanna noted that continuing to espouse the policy was subliminally seducing and keeping Jamaican farmers ignorant of global productivity.

The St Ann MP instead suggested that farmers be made aware of the actual opportunities for export and are properly equipped with fertilizers and water to take advantage of international demands.

“We need to reorient the system and provide our farmers with a systematic supply and demand approach so that they’re not dumping 30 per cent of what they produce,” said Hanna.

“The farmers in your constituency… would be given adequate amounts of fertilizer and water systems, so that the yams that we are producing in the boxes could be supplying the tri-state area. People would not be scrambling to look for two containers of yams consistently leaving our shores, which is what is happening now,” added Hanna.

‘Doing things differently’ was the running theme of Hanna’s presentation, and she highlighted that despite the ‘balance sheet’ indicating that the country was on the right path, the majority of Jamaicans were being left behind.

Hanna further encouraged policymakers to break from old beliefs and systems, which she indicated had continuously held the country from creating the type of economic climate that would see real growth, in a way that increases the per capita income for citizens.