RADA to Support Farmers in the Production of Short-Term Crops

For Jamaicans worried about the cost of ground provisions and others, Senior Director for Production, Marketing and Special Projects, Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA), Xavier Charvis, has promised to track prices, while supporting farmers with resources that will produce short-term crops.

During his address at the second of four RADA Recovery & Resilience Stakeholder sessions, held at the offices of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining on December 8, Mr. Charvis explained the strategies RADA has been seeking to implement in parishes with farmers severely affected by Hurricane Melissa.

“We will be targeting short-term crops. Culturally, farmers whenever they suffer damage, they plant the quickest thing to make money, and this is usually the short-term vegetables; six-week vegetables, such as lettuce, pak choy, string beans and others. We are experiencing high prices at farm gates now, because of the scarcity of produce,” Mr. Charvis said.

“We’ll be providing the marketing intelligence that track and align production to consumption or demand. And how do we do that? We have to be out in the field. We also have to encourage the farmers to communicate with the extension officer [and] the marketing officers. Give us information so that we will be better able to plan and link those farmers to our buyers,” he added.

Mr. Charvis is also encouraging farmers to communicate their produce and indicate the availability of key produce for buyers to become aware. He is also anticipating that production will increase in the coming months, and when it does, RADA will provide storage facilities for farmers who need this most.

These storage areas are located in Trelawny, Clarendon, St. Mary and St. Elizabeth – Santa Cruz and two in Flagaman – which were recently opened. This equates to approximately 10,000 cubic feet of storage area.

“We’ll be using these storage facilities to regularise the market. It is ideal for storing vegetables and fruits,” he said.

Mr. Charvis said RADA farmers’ markets in strategic locations, preferably in urban areas, will also be used to push the crops and offload produce.

His presentation focused on the damage done to the agricultural sector and the impact it is having on farmers and local consumers islandwide.

“There has been extensive damage to all crop categories, and that includes vegetables, fruits, condiments and tubers. We’ve had damage, such as breaking or topline flooding, landslides, and soil erosion. We’ve also had loss of cattle, broilers, layers and small ruminants. We have also experienced infrastructural damage to greenhouses, farm buildings and farm roads,” Mr. Charvis explained.

“This has had a negative impact on the local market,” he noted.

Mr. Charvis said the marketing unit of RADA is still conducting rapid damage and recovery assessments.

The marketing unit at RADA provides technical and marketing information to farmers islandwide through 14 marketing extension officers, five Agri-Linkages Exchange (ALEX) agro brokers and a post-harvest specialist.

They provide critical marketing intelligence, such as weekly farm-gate prices, crop projections in regard to a three-month forecast and situation analysis information to the Ministry.

They also use technology, through the ALEX platform, to collect and disseminate critical data to and from key stakeholders; and facilitate market linkages between farmers and buyers, capacity-building opportunities, training, good agricultural practices, post-harvest management, grading and sorting of crops.