FACE of Food Sessions Highlight Commitment of Farmers – Minister Green

Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining, Hon. Floyd Green, says the islandwide new FACE of Food Stakeholder sessions have served to highlight the commitment of farmers and fishers to the sector.

The Ministry brought the curtains down on the sessions in the parish of Trelawny, recently.

The 13th and final session, held at Glistening Waters, attracted several stakeholders and sought to sensitise them about the campaign as well as other projects and programmes that are being embarked on by the Ministry.

In an interview with JIS News, Mr. Green noted that the farmers and fishers have remained resilient, despite the many issues that have plagued the sector in the last few years.

“Despite the challenges last year; despite the fact that we went through our worst drought in history and then we saw intense periods of rainfall; despite them losing oftentimes, they keep coming back,” he said.

“We saw resilience of the Jamaican farmers and fishers, and each parish I went to, the overarching message was one of hope, that they are still committed; they just need some more support, and as such, we are going to have to support them,” Mr. Green underscored.

Meanwhile, Mr. Green noted that the sessions were necessary, as often the Ministry has programmes and stakeholders are often not aware of them.

“I have found that often we develop these programmes and we don’t take them back to the farmers and help guide them in relation to what it is the market says, what are we looking for, what does the export market says, and what are we going to be providing direct support for,” he said.

The Ministry’s New FACE of Food campaign is geared towards driving Food security, Agribusiness development, Climate change technologies, and Export expansion.