Green: Agriculture education in school to get more focus

WESTERN BUREAU:

The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining will be ramping up efforts to ensure that agricultural education is provided to students at the primary school level, in order to instil in youngsters an early understanding of and appreciation for agriculture and its associated job opportunities.

Agriculture Minister Floyd Green made the declaration while speaking to journalists on Thursday following a tour of three farms in Perth Town, Clarks Town, and Jackson Town in Trelawny. The tour was held following the conclusion of the final leg of the ministry’s ‘New FACE of Food’ stakeholder meeting series, which was held at the Glistening Waters Restaurant and Marina in Falmouth.

“We do have fairly extensive agriculture programmes in the secondary schools, but what I find is that, in the primary schools it is not as extensive, and I do believe we have to introduce our youth to agriculture in a much earlier setting. So I have asked the 4-H [Jamaica 4-H Clubs] to look back at that and to see how we can work with our Ministry of Education to ensure that we have a practical sort of agriculture-based curriculum that can be applied in our primary schools,” said Green.

“Clearly, it has to go with everything that they do in their preparation for the Primary Exit Profile [PEP] exam, but what we want to see more of is farm tours, actually introducing them to the business side of agriculture, having a farmer like at one of the farms we visited today to carry them on that educational tour. We want to see more of that.”

The minister noted that arrangements are being made to take an educational programme into schools this year to teach children about agriculture, while referencing a previously announced plan to expand the current school gardening programme.

“Normally, over the years, our school gardening programme has been small, but, especially at the primary school level, there’s no reason why we can’t do more. We have a great initiative at the Osborne Store Primary and Infant School [in Clarendon], which we have highlighted in our calendar this year, and we are going to model that and take that across the country. So you’ll be seeing a lot more emphasis on our school gardens, on our educational programme,” said Green.

“We will embark on a school tour sometime this year to take the message directly, so just like we did our stakeholders, I think we have to take those messages to our students,” Green added, referencing the stakeholder meetings regarding the New FACE of Food initiative. “Additionally, a lot of them [students] are unaware of all the professions that are in agriculture, and about these new tech-based professions, like a drone pilot for agriculture. We are going to embark on bringing that message to our students.”

Last October, the agriculture ministry sought to kick-start the expansion of its school garden programme as part of efforts to boost schools’ ability to feed themselves and strengthen Jamaica’s food security.

At that time, Green announced that poultry production would be increased to ensure an adequate protein supply for students, and that greater focus would be placed on fruit tree cultivation.

Prior to that, in 2021, the Jamaica 4-H Clubs announced that it would introduce new initiatives to engage more young Jamaicans in the business of agriculture, to include training 500 youth farmers in the first quarter of that year. More than a year later, in August 2022, approximately 600 youth farmers became beneficiaries of the Strengthening the Adaptive Capacity of Young Farmers and Fisherfolk project, a $21-million initiative geared towards offering support to youth in agriculture to combat climate change and natural disasters.

In the meantime, David Robb, whose Clarks Town-based animal farm, JDJR Hyde Farm, was one of the facilities toured by Green’s team on Thursday, is applauding the move to push agricultural education into the school curriculum, citing his own past efforts to provide students with an avenue to learn about farming.

“The fact is, I used to sit on a board of a high school, and I made them a proposal years ago, to send me two of their agriculture students each term, those who are interested in agriculture, and let me see if I could get them to be more involved mentally in the whole agricultural processes… it has been four or five years [since the initial suggestion was made], and they came to me last week asking me if I could take two students,” said Robb.

“If we are serious about agriculture in any way, shape or form, we have to start inculcating it into our students from their early years. If we don’t do that, they will lose their way as soon as they see other things which are more pleasing to the eye,” Robb added.

christopher.thomas@gleanerjm.com