By K.C. Soares, Contributor 
Soares
SMALL FARMS comprise more than 90 per cent of the total number of businesses involved in agriculture.
Most of these businesses are unable to expand, and become more competitive for two main reasons - restrictive land area and lack of financing.
Other reasons are lack of training, adaptability to change and socio-political factors including praedial larceny. In general, for an agricultural small business sector to be viable, there have to be policy changes by the administrative and regulatory bodies as well as increased credit disbursement to the sector.
When this is achieved, the social factors will come into play to ensure sustainability of the sector. The agricultural sector at this time is like a plane on a runway waiting for take-off. The administrative / regulatory bodies collectively form the runway for the plane to taxi down; the financial support provides the means for take-off into the sky; and on reaching the desired altitude the plane levels off thus representing the socio-political environment. Only when the plane levels off can we achieve sustained growth of this sector and by extension overall economic growth and development.
Let us first look at the land issue. The amount of land available for agricultural purposes is more or less fixed (land lost to erosion or reclaimed is not being considered). It is therefore of utmost importance that the limited land mass be put to optimal use. Throughout Jamaica there are many different soil types of varying consistency and fertility levels. Coupled with this are the topography and the climatic conditions, which enable the country to successfully grow a wide variety of crops.
Most crops need to be grown over a fair amount of land area in order to be economically viable. Unfortunately, the land reform policies of previous administrations favoured fragmentation of the land. This has resulted in many small farms, which are not economically viable.
The ability of these small farms to provide cash income will continue to slowly decline and will reach the point where they will only be able to feed the immediate family involved.
The corrective action that needs to be embarked on immediately is the gradual phasing out of some traditional crops (banana, sugar-cane, cocoa etc.) and use these lands to increase the acreages of viable crops.
Small farmers who are now growing crops that could be viable but have not got the required acres to make the venture feasible should be granted the opportunity to have a portion of these lands through a leasehold arrangement.
Sugar cane and bananas are two crops among the traditional crops that are not going anywhere for the small farming sector. Emphasis should be placed on non-traditional crops.
Take for instance, in the calendar year 2001 the value of traditional agricultural exports declined by 11 per cent while the non-traditional agricultural exports increased by 23.6 per cent over the previous year (source - Economic and Social Survey 2001).
This has been the trend for the past ten years and it mystifies me why vast amounts of money are being put into crops such as sugar cane and bananas.
These crops should be gradually phased out
and more lucrative
crops such as ackees planted on the lands now occupied by them.
A lot has been said about the social consequences that will result from this move. True, people will be out of jobs but a significant amount of the displaced workers will be absorbed in the cultivation of non-traditional crops. Others may even be employable in agro-processing factories, which will result from the expansion of the non-traditional crops.
