Sat | Apr 20, 2024

Ministry to spend millions to build fish hatchery

Published:Saturday | January 16, 2021 | 7:17 AM
Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Floyd Green (centre), listens to Project Manager of the ‘Promoting Community-based Climate Resilience in the Fisheries Sector Project’, Selena Ledgister (right), during the Stakeholder and Validation Consultation
Contributed
Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Floyd Green (centre), listens to Project Manager of the ‘Promoting Community-based Climate Resilience in the Fisheries Sector Project’, Selena Ledgister (right), during the Stakeholder and Validation Consultation Session, on Thursday at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston. Also listening is Chief Executive Officer, National Fisheries Authority, Dr Gavin Bellamy.

During the upcoming fiscal year, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries will pump millions of dollars into building out a fish hatchery in Jamaica, in an effort to grow the fisheries sector.

Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Floyd Green has given his commitment to spearhead this buildout primarily through the Promoting Community-based Climate Resilience in the Fisheries Sector Project.

He was speaking at an event on Thursday at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston where members of the ministry’s Fisheries Department and overseas consultants hosted a Stakeholder and Validation Consultation Session.

“I think this Promoting Community-based Climate Resilience in the Fisheries Sector Project is tremendously important to all we want to do in fisheries. It’s also important to what we should have done in the fisheries sector,” the minister said.

This buildout will be done in tandem with overseas consultants who took part in the meeting virtually.

HIGH-QUALITY CONSULTANCIES

“We have been able to find high-quality consultancies that you could see not only the level of expertise, but their passion about the areas that they’ve taken on,” Green said.

“One of the things that we’ve been championing is that we definitely need to expand our hatchery and to modernise our hatchery,” he added.

Green emphasised that this has to be a priority for this year.

“I’m happy that we have run a design, which, from the feedback in general, people agree with the design, agree with what has been put forward. Clearly, like everything else, additional things can be done,” he said.

Green said renewable energy will be added to the project, based on the consultations.

Also to be included are a maintenance budget; training for youth through HEART/NSTA Trust and the College of Agriculture, Science and Education (CASE); and species that work best for sustainability.

During the consultation session, there were presentations from Til-Aqua International BV, AquaBio Tech Group, Alternative Livelihoods for Subprojects, BRAC Consultants and C2M2C2 Consultants.