Hounslow Research Station To Become Centre Of Excellence

Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Hon. Floyd Green, says the Ministry will be allocating resources to transform the Hounslow Research Station in St. Elizabeth into a centre of excellence for small ruminant production in western Jamaica.

He noted that the facility, which is currently underutilized, “is part of a project that has already been approved by our public infrastructure committee to rehabilitate all our research stations”.

Minister Green, who was addressing the launch of the National Small Ruminant Development Programme at the facility recently, said that part of the focus is to enhance training, particularly for young people. 

“We have to ramp up our training programme. We should be here with students right now training because in order to support a modern ruminant sector, we have to have a cadre of young professionals who are trained in small ruminant management so that they can go out into the field to help our farmers,” Mr. Green said.

“We have to utilise the high schools in the area. We should have all these schools already introducing young people to proper practices in relation to the small ruminant industry,” he added.

In the meantime, Mr. Green indicated that the Bodles Agricultural Research Station in Old Harbour, St. Catherine, is to be rehabilitated and equipped with modernised training tools for best practices in meat processing, storage and packaging.

He said the facility needs to regain its status as the premier research institution across the Caribbean region.

“So, we also have to do some more work down here. We are going to be fully modernising and rehabilitating the [station],” he stressed.