The Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) is to receive additional equipment this fiscal year to enhance operations at seven agro-processing incubators. This will be facilitated under the Rural Economic Development Initiative (REDI), which has been allotted $126.5 million in the 2017/18 Estimates of Expenditure, now before the House. The sum will also be used to continue business-development support to seven...

More than $1 billion has been allocated to the Sugar Transformation Project to develop a sustainable private-sector-led sugar industry. Details are contained in the 2017/18 Estimates of Expenditure, now before the House of Representatives. The project, being implemented by the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries, aims to coordinate the smooth and effective implementation of the Jamaica Country Strategy...

Minister of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries, Hon. Karl Samuda, says Jamaica must adopt modern technologies in order to improve and expand the livestock sector. “We in Jamaica are too small. We do not have the resources to develop the type of herd sizes that would make us able to supply our needs.  What therefore we have to do is…to...

Minister of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries, Hon. Karl Samuda, says provision will be made in the Ministry’s budget to ensure that there is adequate supply of water for farmers across the island. Speaking at the official opening of a small ruminants Reproductive and Fertility Laboratory in St. Elizabeth on Friday (February 17), he noted that over the years farmers...

The management of Worthy Park Estate Limited has been lauded for the high efficiency of the operations at its sugar factory in St. Catherine by Minister of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries, Hon. Karl Samuda. The factory has an annual output of 28,000 tonnes derived from some 260,000 tonnes of milled sugar cane. During a visit to the plant on...

A sum of $20 million has been allocated in the 2017-18 budget for a project to enhance the resilience of the agricultural sector and coastal areas. As provided for in the Estimates of Expenditure, now before the House of Representatives, the project aims to protect livelihood and food security in vulnerable communities by improving land and water management for the...

The Sydney Pagon Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Academy in St. Elizabeth is to become a hub for the production of items for the breakfast feeding programme for primary schools in the northern section of the parish. Minister without Portfolio in the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries, J. C. Hutchinson, said the institution, which sits on over...