Agro park comedy just ain't funny

Chris Serju, Rural Affairs and Agriculture Reporter

Silence, though often misunderstood, can never be misquoted!

Roger Clarke and the jolly band he leads at the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries would do well to grasp this simple concept and ensure their brains are working properly before putting their mouths in gear.

Failure to observe these simple instructions throughout what passed for a press conference at Agriculture headquarters called recently to 'correct' a number of issues raised by a Jamaica Observer lead story about the Plantain Garden River agro park in St Thomas served only to highlight the abysmal state of farming.

In their haste to hit back at the newspaper, a number of heads of the agencies entrusted with leading Jamaica's agricultural renaissance showed unequivocally just how their combined pettiness, high-handedness and downright arrogance continue to derail this vital process.

CAUSTIC AND PUERILE

Minister Clarke was particularly caustic and puerile in offering this explanation for the newspaper article: "What is happening is that there are some people who do not want this thing to succeed, but I am determined that it is going to succeed. It has been succeeding and it is going to succeed.

"This is Jamaica. If you are doing something good, somebody is going to try and tear it down and it is one of the ways that some people sell their newspapers. Beautiful headline and you don't have me dancing this time, so you have to put something else to make sure that your newspaper can sell."

In his opening remarks, Donovan Stanberry, permanent secretary in the agriculture ministry, declared, "The agro parks are our flagship programme and any publicity that is inimical to that programme, we are duty-bound to respond, particularly if things are inaccurate ... ."

Well, here is breaking news for Mr Stanberry.

The nation is still awaiting evidence of the structured procedures that were designed to guide implementation of the nine agricultural parks in St Thomas, St Catherine, Manchester, St Elizabeth and Trelawny.

In the comedy of errors to which the media were given front row seats, a little in-house editing might have saved these 'textbook agriculturalists' quite a few blushes. For while Stanberry was sufficient to the task of narrator and Roger Clarke lived up to his billing as headliner, co-stars Dennis Hickey, aka chairman of the AIC board, and Everton Spencer, in the role of CEO of AIC, failed to add substance to the proceedings, with Lenworth Fulton's walk-on cameo in the capacity of CEO of RADA best forgotten.

DRY RUN FOR COMEDY

Less than halfway through the proceedings, it became clear that despite its titling, the event was nothing more than a dry run for a comedy, with media houses co-opted to provide the much-needed pre-publicity. By the end, I had settled on that great classic I Started a Joke as the soundtrack, having wrestled with Send in The Clowns and reluctantly passing over the still very popular Everybody's Somebody's Fool.

The lyrics of the first verse, and in particular the last lines, were what tilted things in favour of my winning soundtrack choice, as follows:

I started a joke,

Which started the whole world crying,

Oh, but I didn't see,

That the joke was on me.

For, with no Aces in sight or anywhere else, given his penchant for short sleeves, dealer Stanberry did the unthinkable, something loonier than dealing from the bottom of the deck. He resorting to JO-KING, which in this case means presenting a JOKER, poorly disguised as a KING, with no chance of the attempted masquerade passing muster.

RECOVERY PLAN

Hopeton Morrison, head of the St Thomas Co-operative Credit Union, through which the loans were channelled, did an excellent job of muddying the water after being pressed into service to provide clarity.

Cutting to the chase, he admitted that among shortcomings was a $7.5-million recovery plan for the delinquent farmers. Delinquent because, as Morrison explained, they had gone and planted out two acres of callaloo on land prepared with inputs from the ministry and credit union, for an independent contractor.

"The truth of the matter is that the resuscitation plan is a very credible, workable plan," Morrison insisted. "The fact is that every single person that I know is going through the struggles of the economic recovery. I manage the credit union, I see it among our members; persons who normally never owed have now become delinquent."

Then he added this kicker: "When you consider that none of the other agro parks, minister, have got even anything remotely to what these farmers have got, right, so I have to account to my board as to the recovery of that $12 million that we have lent.

"Fortunately, there is a credit enhancement facility in the DBJ that, with proper documentation, you can write off half of that, with reasonableness. So you are left owing a half of that, which is $6 million,' he boasted.

As I struggled to make sense of what was being said, Hickey managed to surpass the preceding inanity with this pronouncement.

"I think one of the points that need to be made is that despite the failure of the first crop that we spoke about ... a part of the recovery, the ministry has immediately assigned a specialist to ensure that as far as onion is concerned, any replanting of the onion is going to be led by an expert and is part of the whole process; you made some mistakes, you correct it in the next crop."

This was after the agriculture minister had proudly explained that the renegade band of farmers found squatting on Crown land had made it clear it would be business as usual - their style.

Said he: "They were on about 60 acres of land, we offered them 120 acres and they objected. As a matter of fact, they went and captured some more land. We went out and with all that they did, we say, let's sit down and work something out."

By the minister's admission, this resulted in the initial expenditure of some $78 million on irrigation, drainage, roads, land clearing and preparation and the farmers in possession of a total of 290 acres.

This is particularly interesting in light of the fact that it was only after going public with its dissatisfaction at failing after six weeks of trying to get an agro park plot that Red Stripe was able to get a measly 36 acres for a pilot project to cultivate cassava. What the beer company elected not to disclose at the signing ceremony is that the 36 acres represents just over a third of the 100 acres it really needed to make a proper go at substitution.

How does one explain the inability of a multinational such as Red Stripe, equipped with a business plan and the resources to finance, if necessary, the full infrastructural requirements of an agro park, being passed over consideration, when the State is hell-bent on showing that after wasting millions of dollars, it is even more determined to throw good money after bad.

It's bad enough when the animal being tossed about at the end of the tail is a chihuahua or poodle, but it's altogether a different kettle of fish when that dog being wagged turns out to be an adult male African elephant, white in colour. Forcing the public to foot the medical bill and other upkeep costs, such as sun-tanning sessions, for such a creature is a travesty in need of urgent remediation.

Chris Serju is a rural affairs and agriculture reporter. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and Christopher.serju@gleanerjm.com.