Call to investigate declining crop production

CO-CHAIRMAN OF the agriculture committee of the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (JCC), Mark Brooks, has called for an official investigation, to be spearheaded by international scientists, to determine the cause of Jamaica's declining crop production.

Mr. Brooks also suggested that scientists from the United Kingdom-based Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International (CABI), whom he has proposed should be invited to undertake the analysis, should also be asked to make recommendations on strategies to have profitable and sustainable domestic yield.

He was speaking at the monthly board meeting of the JCC at General Accident's offices at Half-Way Tree Road, St. Andrew on Tuesday.

Mr. Brooks, a sugarcane farmer from St. Ann, against the background of the recent civil unrest which began in West Kingston and spread to other parts of the island, argued that "when the agricultural sector does well the economy also does well," and therefore, "without the agricultural sector there will not be stability."

He said that despite the best efforts of farmers, increased agricultural inputs were not generating commensurate outputs, and in fact they were experiencing a chronic low yield syndrome, primarily because of what he said were "soil based biological constraints".

This means that the actions of root, stem and vascular attacking agents, such as fungi and nematodes, impede proper plant growth and development, reduce plant output and result in generally lower yields, Mr. Brooks explained.

"All sorts of vegetation from trees to grasses are seriously affected," he said. "Unfortunately, the problem is too easily explained away with excuses such as lack of nutrients, dry weather or just a bad year, among others."

According to Mr. Brooks, "what is needed is a proper co-ordinated investigation to elucidate the various causal agents and develop appropriate management strategies so as to have profitable and sustainable crop production."

Such an investigation, he said, should be spearheaded by CABI, an organisation of which Jamaica is a member country. "They would be best suited to assist in finding the necessary funds and scientific personnel required to deal with the magnitude of the problem," said Mr. Brooks.

And chairman of the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS), Bobby Pottinger, in appealing to the JCC for assistance to establish an agricultural development fund, said they could not depend on the Government's budgetary allocation to "put the sector right."

Noting that part of the fund would be used to put in place an anti-praedial larceny initiative, Mr. Pottinger argued that the country could not continue to have such a massive national security budget and suggested that some of those funds should be channelled to agriculture.

Among other initiatives, he outlined a plan which would see the revival of the defunct Agricultural Marketing Corporation (AMC) - the state-owned agency established by the Michael Manley regime in the 1970s but was closed during the Edward Seaga-led administration of the 1980s - which would be private sector driven and free from political interference.

The development fund would also be used to put hundreds of thousands of acres of idle land across Jamaica into production, increase goat rearing to lower the price of local goat meat, and in the process provide employment for young people and hence reduce the rural to urban drift, and by extension reduce crime and violence, Mr. Pottinger said.

The JAS chairman said there were many qualified young people in rural Jamaica who could not find jobs, "and we would like to attract them to agriculture."

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