RADA Executing Two-Year Plan for Recovery of Agriculture

The Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) is implementing a structured, three-fold plan for the recovery of Jamaica’s agricultural sector, which suffered an estimated $30 billion in damage from Hurricane Melissa.

The two-year plan, comprising immediate, medium-term and long-term interventions, mobilises RADA’s full technical, extension and engineering teams and leverages partnerships among key agencies, farmer groups and the private sector, said the entity’s Executive Officer, Garnet Edmondson.

He was addressing the first in a four-part RADA Recovery and Resilience Forum at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining’s Hope Gardens location in St. Andrew on Tuesday (December 1).

Providing details of the plan, Mr. Edmondson said that the immediate actions, being implemented over the first three months of the hurricane’s passage, involve emergency interventions, including damage assessments.

Over the medium-term, from three to12 months, assistance will be provided for the rehabilitation of infrastructure, farmer training and supply chain restoration.

The long-term interventions, to be implemented from 12 to 24 months, will include building climate resilience, diversifying production and modernising farm systems.

Mr. Edmondson informed that in the first 90 days after the hurricane, RADA conducted rapid damage assessment across all 14 parishes and distributed more than $40 million in material, including seeds, fertilisers and planting materials.

The agency also commenced free land preparation services for six months, including plowing, tilling and land clearing to help farmers replant faster, he pointed out.

Just last week, six walk-behind tractors were handed over and another four tractors dispatched in the service.

Additionally, RADA has procured $50 million worth of seeds that will impact some 1,000 hectares of vegetables roots and tubers in strategic zones and has started distributing more than 500,000 sweet potato slips and other clean planting material through the Bodles Research Station.

Mr. Edmondson noted that Hurricane Melissa has been one of the most devastating storms in Jamaica’s history, causing more than $30 billion in damage and impacting over 7,000 farmers across Jamaica.

The hurricane resulted in the loss of 43,570 hectares of crops and about 1.4 million animals, damaged over 156,000 square feet of greenhouse space and disrupted 357 kilometres of farm roads, irrigation systems and marketing channels, he pointed out.

He informed that attention is being placed on yam farmers in Manchester, Trelawny, St. Ann and Hanover.

“These are some of our larger producing yam parishes, and of course, yam is one of our chief export earners, so we have to pay close attention,” Mr. Edmondson said.

As it relates to the loss of vegetable crops in the breadbasket parish of St. Elizabeth, neighbouring Westmoreland and other parishes, Mr. Edmondson noted that RADA has shifted production to the eastern part of the island where farmers were less affected and are willing to produce to make up for the shortfall.

Chief Executive Officer, Agro-Investment Corporation (AIC), Vivion Scully, for his part, said that the entity is not just focused on rebuilding pre-Melissa.

“We are moving to a stronger baseline, building back stronger. We want to restore full irrigation functionality, and we have had significant support from the National Irrigation Commission (NIC) in doing that. So, despite the electricity challenges, they have mobilised generators to get the pumps going and cleared whatever obstacles there were to irrigation,” Mr. Scully said.

“We’re now coordinating replanting. We’re also working with the agro-producers just to determine the needs that they’re going to have and ensure that we are planting to support the agro-processing centre and the export sector,” he added.

He reminded the farmers that the Ministry is working with the Development Bank of Jamaica (DBJ), which launched an M5 Business Recovery Programme that will offer farmers a lower interest rate to get back into production.