Long-Term Approach Must Be Taken To Fix Coffee Farm Roads – Minister

Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining, Hon. Floyd Green, says that a long-term approach to dealing with coffee farm roads must be taken, to propel the nation’s coffee farmers by granting easier access to their farms.

“What I have said to the Jamaica Agricultural Commodities Regulatory Authority (JACRA) team [is that] we have to take the coffee road programme out of the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) farm road programme, because the small fixes, they help, but we need some big fixes,” said Mr. Green, at the handover of fertilisers and herbicides to coffee farmers in the Buff Bay Valley area of Portland, recently.

He explained that for the short-term approach using resources already available, at least six roads in the coffee belt will be dealt with every year. In this financial year, this will include roads such as Wakefield to Mahoe and Bangor Ridge to Mahoe in Portland, as well as others in St. Thomas and parts of St. Andrew.

Mr. Green pointed out that he has asked JACRA to work with the National Works Agency and do a comprehensive assessment of how much money it is going to cost to fix the coffee roads once and for all.

“Because one of the things that we know, if we are able to fix access to the farms, you will produce more. And if you produce more, the country will make more money from coffee. So, the reality is that the investment in coffee will pay back for itself. So, we have to fix the infrastructure,” the Minister emphasised.