Ministry Bolsters Support for Youth in Agriculture
By: , January 30, 2025
Photo: Yhomo Hutchinson
Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining, Hon. Floyd Green (second left), is attentive as Papine High School student Raheim Marshall (second right) explains the technique of growing lettuce in a greenhouse. Looking on are fellow students Venicia Raymor (left) and Ashalee Robinson. The Minister toured the greenhouse facility following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Jamaica Bauxite Institute (JBI) and the Papine High School for the utilisation of the greenhouse located at the JBI’s St. Andrew headquarters, on June 14, 2024.
Photo: Contributed
Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining, Hon. Floyd Green, engages with students from the College of Agriculture, Science and Education (CASE), during an ‘Eat Jamaica Day’ event at the institution in Portland in 2023.The Full Story
The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining is ramping up efforts to get more young people involved in agriculture.
Portfolio Minister, Hon. Floyd Green, said that the scholarship programme will be enhanced to empower students to pursue career opportunities in the sector.
“Last year, we offered 253 scholarships to youth across Jamaica. The $23.5 million that we are spending in relation to our scholarships would have helped 99 tertiary students from the College of Agriculture Science and Education (CASE) and the HEART/NSTA Trust Ebony Park Academy, and 151 secondary students and three vocational students to pay for their agricultural training so that they can come back and work in agriculture,” he informed.
The Minister was addressing the Gender-responsive Climate Smart Agriculture and Food Systems in the Caribbean National Inception workshop on January 23 at the Spanish Court Hotel in Kingston.
He informed, further, that the Ministry’s flagship Youth Rural Empowerment Programme will be offering $1 million under its new pitch competition to enable young people to fund their agriculture enterprises.
This year, 208 youth will be participating in the Youth Empowerment Programme.
In addition, Minister Green said that the Ministry is actively pursuing the development of smart farms as a key strategy to bolster the country’s food security and attract more young people to agriculture.
“We are working with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to ensure that we are establishing smart farms using artificial intelligence (AI) to ensure that we can track temperatures and have systems that are fully automated to release irrigation water.
“This will show our young people that there are new professions in agriculture that are based on programming as well as engineering,” he said.
The Gender-responsive Climate-smart Agriculture and Food Systems in the Caribbean project is being executed by the FAO in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining, and through support from the Government of Canada.
It is focused on ‘Empowering Women and Youth for Climate Resilience in Agriculture’.
As part of the initiative, more than 3,500 women and young people will benefit from training in business modelling, financing and production practices for better market access.