The agricultural ministry last week secured US$15 million ($1.26 billion) in loan financing from the Inter American Development Bank (IDB) to boost exports, as output geared towards the domestic market closes on demand after substantial growth in the sector in recent years.

At the same time, the ministry expects to commence implementation of the Agricultural Competitiveness Programme — through which the IDB financing will be disburse — by January.

“The programme is aimed at injecting a business approach in the sector and establishing best practice, which will lead to better efficiencies and productivity gains,” agriculture minister, Chris Tufton told the Business Observer. “We intend to transform the sector in keeping with the ministry’s mandate.”

The sector saw six consecutive quarters of real growth before experiencing a decline of 3.5 per cent in the April to June quarter of 2010, when the sector finally succumbed to the impact of drought conditions which prevailed during the previous three quarters, according to the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ).

Even then, “the growth in domestic market is reaching a point where the output cannot be absorbed locally,” by Donovan Stanbury’s reckoning.

Stanbury, the permanent secretary in the agriculture ministry, told the Business Observer that it has now become necessary to “build market access and linkages”, which is why resources under this programme will be used “to create infrastructure that will enable people to get into export in a structured way”.

“We plan to help set up a distribution system,” he added.

The programme has three priority lines of actions aimed at increase productivity and competitiveness among small and medium size farmers.

“Specifically the program supports: (i) the strengthening of producers organisations along clusters, (ii) the development of public and private partnerships in agribusiness value chains, and (iii) the strengthening and modernisation of the country’s agricultural health and food quality management systems.

“The end objective is to increase the competitiveness of farmers to access national and international markets and, hence, to contribute to increase farm income in Jamaica,” said IDB documentation on the programme.

The programme loan was approved last Wednesday.

Small farmers are to be targetted because their farms make up 75 per cent of the total number in Jamaica.

“For this type of farmer the combination of dissemination of market and price information and farmers’ organisation, will promote better productive decisions and will facilitate small producers access to markets, will encourage the clustering of activities to take advantage of shared knowledge, technology and methods of production; It facilitates, procurement, certification and traceability; it will also increase their bargaining power and facilitate their access to credit, and instruments to manage risks, leading to a bigger agricultural income,” added the IDB documentation. “Also, the elimination of barriers that arise from the country’s inability to ensure international quality standards and food safety, as well as the development of sound financial instruments targeted to small and medium size farmers will greatly increase the potential to unleash a

wide array of products on a competitive basis across markets.”

Stanbury said that the agriculture ministry has placed urgency on the project and indicated that provisions were already made for some of the expenditure this year while terms of references were already being prepared for employing individuals needed to implement the project.

“By January the project should have already commenced,” Stanbury added.