Holness aiming to transform St James into agricultural zone
Published:Wednesday | November 1, 2023 | 12:08 AMAlbert Ferguson/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
SOUTH ST James will be converted into a thriving agricultural zone, according to Prime Minister Andrew Holness, as part of an effort to generate economic prosperity for the residents of those farming communities.
He said that he has instructed Agriculture Minister Floyd Green to transform the area under a development plan that will focus on agriculture, healthcare and civil infrastructure.
“I have also asked him to look at a more comprehensive plan. And I want you to make South St James into an agricultural production zone,” Holness said.
He noted that the country already has the concept of agro parks, where an in-depth look at government and even privately owned arable lands is done, and then farmers are placed on them and provided with seedlings and assistance with marketing.
“But under this [agricultural] zone now, we are going to look at creating several agro parks, where we will be finding the young people who are showing interests in farming,” the prime minister continued, while addressing a conference of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) in St James Southern, where Homer Davis is the sitting member of parliament.
He said there are a lot of young women who are showing interest in farming.
“But you know what is even more surprising I am noticing that there are many young women who are taking an interest in agriculture. We have young women who are taking an interest in agriculture, and they are not just coming to agriculture from the farming side,” Holness observed.
“They (young women) are coming to agriculture from the business side, and so we are going to bring them in because for too long — 31 years — nothing was happening in this constituency,” he continued.
Furthermore, the prime minister argued that this rural agricultural constituency once served as a key player in the sector.
He said that the budgetary allocation now stands at over $800 million towards rehabilitating the nation’s farm roads.
“The Government has allocated an additional $200 million, [thereby] increasing our budget for farmers to $810 million, and that is going to do more farm roads right across Jamaica. But I told Minister Green that he must focus in this constituency and develop the farm roads, particularly in the Catadupa area,” Holness told JLP supporters.
“The farm roads are there, but they need rehabilitation to enable the farmers to bring their produce to market with more efficiency and convenience. These are going to be real things that will make your life better. We heard what you said, and we put in our process to address the complaints that you have made as part of the government,” he said.
Holness admitted that water is one of the many things that has been holding back the production of agriculture. The construction of water tanks and catchments as part of a water-harvesting project, according to the prime minister, will address this issue.
“It was clear that one of the things holding back agriculture here, aside from the roads, was water. It is not that you don’t have water, you have some of the most consistent rainfall on the island, some areas get rain almost every day. The problem is storage and distribution,” the prime minister added.
“This means we are going to go back to what we used to do in the ‘60s, ‘70s, and even in the ‘80s, where we would build massive storage tanks and catchment areas in proximity to farming locations and make water available in a more consistent manner,” Holness said.