PM Says Agriculture and Manufacturing must be Linked

Prime Minister the Hon. Bruce Golding has expressed the view that if Jamaica is to have a brighter future in agriculture then it must be linked to manufacturing and driven by technology.
Speaking at his sixth Town Hall Meeting, in Annotto Bay, St. Mary on September 09, he said “We have to integrate agriculture with manufacturing; and agro-processing is something for which Ministers Samuda and Tufton are working hard to get a bond. This involves questions of technology, marketing and issues to do with energy.”
He added that when these issues are solved, farmers will have a wider marketing window to sell their produce and to supply enough to make factories more productive.
He noted that recent initiatives of the Ministry of Agriculture were already yielding results, and that production of many crops has been increasing every quarter since the middle of last year.
“We have reached a stage where we have not only recovered what we’ve lost from the two hurricanes, but we are now achieving growth beyond just the point of recovery and, if we continue to pursue the transformational approach that we have been taking, we’re going to be better off,” he said.