Agriculture Ministry Wants More Jamaicans to Rear Goats

The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining wants more farmers to get involved in goat rearing. Portfolio Minister, Hon. Floyd Green, said the small ruminant sector in Jamaica needs support to meet the local demand.

“We love our curried goat, but about 80 per cent of that is imported. Often it is mutton or sheep. We are not meeting our demand for our local goat. We have a project now to push that, so we want to encourage everybody to get involved in our small ruminant sector,” he said.

The Minister was speaking during a recent Jamaica Information Service (JIS) Get the Facts interview.

Minister Green reiterated the Government’s support of the small ruminant sector on the island.

“The Ministry of Finance worked with us, and so we took off GCT and duty costs for persons who want to bring in goats to strengthen their breeding stock. We also have an artificial insemination programme now to drive the massive expansion of our goat herds,” he said.

In addition to increasing goat production on the island, the Ministry is also focused on increasing the production of specific crops to strengthen the island’s food security matrix.

“We are going to be targeting a lot more sweet potatoes and yams. We are very good at producing high quantities of sweet potatoes and yams, and that can be our carbohydrate matrix,” the Minister said.

“We’re also going to be targeting our orchard crops, which include breadfruit, ackee and mangoes. With that effort we are looking at food security and export expansion,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Minister said the recent New FACE of Food initiative is focused on changing how Jamaicans see the local agricultural sector.

The FACE label in the name of the initiative is an acronym that represents its four core aspects.

“We have to move from just thinking about Agriculture and recognising that everything we eat is tied to agriculture.

Agriculture and Fisheries is tied to our food and we need a new “Face”.

We have four strategic pillars – Food security being the first one; Agribusiness development being the second one; Climate-smart technologies, which is how we respond to climate change; and Export expansion,” he said.