MAY PEN, Clarendon — Dusting off the FACE of Food initiative which he initially floated in 2021 during his first stint as agriculture minister, Floyd Green says he is still counting on the strategy to drive the sector.

“There are four pillars that we will be focusing on as a strategic direction of the ministry. Those pillars are food security, agribusiness development, climate-smart technologies, and export expansion,” Green told guests and patrons at the 69th staging of the Denbigh Agricultural and Industrial Food Show that got underway at the Denbigh Showgrounds in Clarendon on Saturday.

He provided details on some of the specific crops.

“One of the areas the ministry will be prioritising and revitalising is the sweet potato programme. We now produce about 60,000 tonnes of sweet potato and we want to increase that to 75,000 tonnes over the next three years. We now export 1,500 tonnes and looking to increase that to 2,500 tonnes because the demand out there for sweet potato is tremendous,” he added.

Green said yam and ackee also have great potential.

“We make about US$25 million yearly from yam exports and we are just scratching the surface. Too many of our yam farmers are susceptible to the drought so we will be working with them to see how we can mechanise yam production. We will also be working with our orchard crops; we want to unveil at least 1,000 acres of ackee. When it comes to export, canned ackee is number one and we are just scratching the surface there too as we make about US$30 million yearly from the exportation of ackee. But we don’t have ackee orchards and we are going to change that,” he said.

There are also plans to put 1,000 acres into breadfruit production.

“This is a super crop and we can utilise that to replace the rice that we love to consume,” said Green.

He also noted the popularity of Jamaica’s mangoes, which, he said, “are some of the most sought-after fruit in the world”.

The minister, in highlighting a raft of initiatives in his keynote address at the show, said small ruminant production will also be targeted for special intervention.

“We import about 80 per cent of our goat meat and this is a tremendous opportunity to tap into this market and treat with our import bill to deal with food security,” said Green.

“We have a small ruminant programme now where you can import live livestock duty free and we have artificial insemination free from the ministry as a method of driving small ruminant production. We also want to drive freshwater fish production as we do not have hands to sell fresh water fish. We need more people to get on board so we are incentivising the production, which means if you can do the work to excavate and have one acre of pond ready, we will give you all the fingerlings free of cost to ensure that people get involved in the sector and these initiatives will be used to drive the growth of the sector over the next three years,” the minister said.

He pointed to progress made in getting the county’s youngsters involved in agriculture, noting that his ministry has surpassed its goal of ensuring that at least 20 per cent of lands across agro-parks are allotted to youth. They are now at 24 per cent.

“Not only that but land preparation is free of cost, through the ministry, for young people who are a part of the agro-parks because we want them to get involved in the business of agriculture. It is an exciting time, and we are facing climate change and we are going to show that we have the most resilient sector,” said Green.

He first touted FACE of Food on May 12, 2021 in making his contribution — as minister of agriculture and fisheries— to the 2021/22 Sectoral Debate. On September 15, 2021 Green resigned from the Cabinet following public backlash after a video surfaced showing him and several others in clear breach of COVID-19 protocols at a social gathering purportedly on a no-movement day. On May 22, 2023, Green was reinstated as minister of agriculture, fisheries and mining, one of a number of changes made to the Cabinet.