Agriculture Ministry to Establish Storage Facilities Across the Island
By: , January 29, 2024
Photo: Serena Grant
Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining, Hon. Floyd Green (right) and owner of ANR Farms limited in Trelawny, Adrian Robinson share a moment, during a tour of Mr. Robinson’s farm on January 25.
Photo: Serena Grant
Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining, Hon. Floyd Green (centre) and Chief Executive Officer at the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA), Winston Simpson (right) sample coconuts grown by ANR Farms Ltd, while owner of the property, Adrian Robinson looks on. Occasion was a tour of the farm by the Minister and a team from RADA on January 25.The Full Story
Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining, Hon. Floyd Green, has disclosed that the government plans to establish storage facilities in high producing areas on the island to prolong the life of crops.
The Minister was speaking to journalists after a tour of three farms in Trelawny on January 25.
“What happens in Jamaica is that we do go through periods of glut and periods of shortages, which unfortunately sends up the price oftentimes out of the reach of the consumer and then depress the price so much that the farmers can’t get a good return on their investment,” the Minister said.
“As such, the only way to fight against that is to expand the storage life of the crops that our famers plant. So, at the Ministry we are going to go on a drive to establish these storage facilities,” he informed.
Mr. Green added that the Ministry will need to establish, through farmers’ groups and cooperatives, management structures that can ensure that the storage systems are sustainable.
Meanwhile, the Minister also stated that he was “very impressed” with the diversity of the farming seen in the parish during the tour.
“We did see not only crops that we don’t often see like Otaheite apple and that being intercropped with other things, but we saw a big push for coconut and that is one of the areas that we are trying to get more focus on. We are not supplying our local demand for things like coconut water,” Mr. Green stated.
“I won’t even talk about our external demand for things like our coconut oil [which] is in tremendous demand all over the world, so it is good to see that push. Agriculture is alive and well in Trelawny and a number of people are investing in their agricultural enterprise and are looking to expand,” he added.
As part of the day’s activities, Mr. Green also engaged farmers during the Trelawny leg of the Ministry’s new FACE of Food stakeholder consultation meeting at Glistening Waters in the parish.
The Ministry’s New FACE of Food campaign is geared towards driving food security, agribusiness development, climate change technologies, and export expansion.
The session in Trelawny was the 13th and final instalment of the series which was done to sensitise farmers and other stakeholders about the campaign.