The loss of farmland is detrimental
Dear Editor,
Currently, we are threatened with the loss of two sets of arable land which will impact us significantly.
One is the conversion of Jamaican farmland at Innswood and Bernard Lodge into housing. The Government seems to not have understood the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warnings that we should expect higher temperatures which, as the world is finding, causes serious reductions in the productivity of farmland. They seem to believe that more intensive farming on the reduced area will still produce enough to supply our needs. This is unlikely to be true in the future.
The other is the new threat by Russia to use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Ukraine is a major producer of food in the world and the possibility of radioactive contamination of its farmland by the detonation of nuclear weapons should give the global community serious concern.
Already, many countries are facing the possibility of famine, and the rest are grappling with steep increases in food prices. Given these circumstances, we should not allow building on farmland.
Howard Chin
hmc14@cwjamaica.com
