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Chief Technical Director in the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Dr. Marc Panton, launched a $10 million USAID financed small grants programme, in Braco, Trelawny on Wednesday, October 27. The programme is aimed at assisting farmers to boost production in selected crops, which should also boost their income. Seventeen Farmer's groups, involving 400 individual farmers in six parishes, are to...

Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Hon. Dr. Christopher Tufton, has encouraged Jamaicans to substitute local produce for those in short supply due to the recent weather conditions, rather than turn to imported foods. He was speaking on Tuesday (October 26), at the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries' quarterly press briefing at its Hope Gardens headquarters in Kingston. Dr. Tufton said...

Agricultural production is showing a 5.8 per cent increase for the July to September quarter, when compared with the corresponding period for 2009, with domestic food crop production up by 13.5 per cent. The figure represents a 16 per cent increase over the April to June quarter, which was plagued by severe drought. Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Hon. Dr....

Prime Minister, the Hon. Bruce Golding, has said that farmers must be on the cutting edge to remain viable in a market driven largely by quality and competition from others players. Delivering the main address at the official opening of the Hounslow Research Centre and Demonstration Plot, St. Elizabeth on Saturday, October 24, Mr. Golding stressed that all aspects of...

Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Hon. Dr. Christopher Tufton, says that if Caribbean states import less and produce more for domestic and regional use, the agricultural sector could contribute significantly to its economic prosperity and development. He was speaking, in his capacity as Chairman of the Alliance for the Sustainable Development of Agriculture and the Rural Milleu, during the Caribbean...

Members of civil society and other stakeholders are being urged to join in the fight against hunger, by Head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), in Jamaica, Dr. Gillian Smith. Delivering the FAO's World Food Day message at Clarendon College on October 15, she said that world food production will have to be increased by 70 per...

Minister of State in the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Hon. J.C. Hutchinson, has highlighted areas of success in Jamaica's efforts to produce enough food to feed its own population. "Food Security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active...

The families of two Jamaican farm workers who died in Canada, recently, have been compensated, in the sum of C$15,000, from the insurance plan operated by the Jamaican Liaison Service, Minister of Labour and Social Security, Hon. Pearnel Charles, told the House of Representatives, Tuesday (October 12). The two men, 37-year-old Paul Roache of Clarendon and 43-year-old Ralston White of...

Canadians are some of the largest consumers of coffee, and Jamaica being producer of the world renowned Blue Mountain coffee, would like to tap into that market. As the only English-speaking Caribbean country which participated in the recently held 2010 Canadian Coffee and Tea Show in Toronto, Canada, Jamaica's Blue Mountain coffee enjoyed pride of place at the show. At...

The Food Storage and Prevention of Infestation Division (FSPID) of the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce has disposed of contaminated and expired food items valued at over $1million. The FSPID's Senior Food Storage Scientist, Tamara Morrison, informed JIS News in an interview on Thursday (October 7) that the items were seized at a storage facility in the Montego Freeport,...

The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries will be facilitating the importation of specific agricultural produce to fill consumer needs, as a result of damage to crops due to heavy rains associated with Tropical Storm Nicole. Speaking at a press conference at the Ministry's Old Hope Road headquarters in St. Andrew, on October 6, Portfolio Minister, Hon. Dr. Christopher Tufton said...

The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries will be providing technical and financial support to farmers, as it moves to get the sector back into production, posthaste. Focus is being placed on protected agriculture with some $4 million to be allocated to the Greenhouse Growers Association for the repair of greenhouses. Preliminary figures indicated more than $1 billion in damage to...