Stop supplying fertilizer after crop is reaped, Juliet Holness tells RADA
Published:Saturday | December 2, 2017 | 12:00 AM
St Andrew East Rural Member of Parliament Juliet Holness sent Parliament's Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) members and invited guests into peals of laughter last week when she chided the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) for delivering fertilisers to farmers in her constituency after the crops matured and had been sold.
"As a parting note, the last time we did the national Irish potato programme, the fertilisers came after the potatoes.
"And I am asking, since we have started distributing seeds again, we really need to get on with the programme of having the fertiliser at the time of distribution," Holness, whose constituency is predominantly a farming community, told the RADA representatives who had been invited to the PAAC meeting.
"Because as member (Mikael) Phillips said, and I quite agree with him, I am sure when they received the fertilisers the last time, they would have just sold them because the potatoes were already in," she blurted as she was interrupted by PAAC chairman Wykeham McNeill.
Upon Holness' declaration that the farmers sold the fertilisers, guests and committee members burst into laughter.
It was one of the lighter moments in the meeting, which had an earlier testy exchange between the members and the guests of the Ministry of National Security over the failure of a contractor to deliver vehicles it contracted to deliver on behalf of the Jamaica Constabulary Force.