Shaneka Wallace-Graham is the winner of the Jamaica 4-H Clubs’ inaugural Backyard Family Garden Challenge. The St. James native walked away with a cash prize of $60,000, seedlings and gardening accessories, during a virtual awards ceremony on Thursday (February 25). Second place went to Joel James of St. Catherine, who received $35,000, while Elaine Britain from St. Thomas, who placed...

As part of its thrust to maintain relevance amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the Jamaica 4-H Clubs has revised the way it presents and delivers a number of its training programmes. This has been done while maintaining its mandate as the country’s premier youth leadership and vocational training organisation for young, aspiring farmers and agricultural entrepreneurs. Among its latest endeavours, the...

Farmers and fisherfolk from across the island will receive training in enterprise formalisation and capacity development under the Formalising Operators in the Jamaican Agricultural and Fisheries Sector project. The recently launched initiative is aimed at transforming largely informal operators within the Agriculture and Fisheries sector into formal businesses. Speaking at a Jamaica Information Service (JIS) ‘Think Tank’ on Tuesday, February...

Agriculture and community tourism enterprises are to benefit from the provision of seedling and chemicals, as well as capacity building, under the Government’s Rural Economic Development Initiative II. An allotment of $414.5 million has been made in the 2021/22 Estimates of Expenditure for these and other exigencies under the project, which seeks to enhance access to markets and strengthen climate-resilient...

Residents of Portmore, St. Catherine are being encouraged to embrace the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries’ Backyard Garden project. Making the appeal, Member of Parliament for South East St. Catherine, Robert Miller, said that the project, which will provide some 2,500 householders with kits to start their own vegetable and herb gardens, will ensure food security for residents, particularly during...

A new piggery will be built at the Bodles Research Station in St. Catherine to improve the delivery of support services to pig farmers. Construction of the piggery is part of a rehabilitation project being undertaken at Bodles, for which the Government has budgeted $150 million in the 2021/22 Estimates of Expenditure, now before the House of Representatives. During the...

The Government has allocated $128.7 million to the Agricultural Competitiveness Programme Bridging Project. This programme aims to place Jamaica in a competitive position that will provide solutions to the structural challenges that are confronted by the local agricultural sector. It also seeks to provide opportunities and lay a solid foundation to fully exploit the market potential that exists for Jamaican...