Hugh Martin RECORD-SETTING Prime Minister P.J. Patterson on Wednesday kept his promise regarding the Oath of Allegiance. He must be congratulated for this and all those who witnessed the swearing-in ceremony greeted it with a standing ovation. His predecessor, The Most Excellent Michael Manley, O.N., wherever he is, must be very pleased that all Jamaican Prime Ministers from now on will be comfortable taking this Oath of Allegiance to the people of Jamaica.
Mr. Patterson has demonstrated that he is a man of his word so we can expect that he will keep the promises he made during the election campaign and in his acceptance speech. One of them is the revival of the agricultural sector. Unlike his predecessors, Michael Manley in the 1970s with Operation GROW and Edward Seaga in the 1980s with AGRO 21, he did not conceptualise a major project to drive agricultural development. Considering the failure of both those efforts he may have been wise to leave things to his Minister of Agriculture.
FINE-TUNE THE ENGINE
In any case he doesn't need to re-invent the wheel. In the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) he already has the vehicle. What he needs to do, however, is to empower his Minister with the resources to fine-tune the engine, change the oil and put fuel in the tank.
Between 1990, its inception, and 1996, the peak of its achievements, RADA made itself a household name throughout the length and breadth of Jamaica. In this brief half a decade agricultural production rose to unprecedented levels and the forgotten slogan of years gone by "I'm Proud to be a Farmer" resurfaced as "I'd RADA Be A Farmer" and became a popular bumper sticker. To be a RADA Officer was to regain the prestige of the Agricultural Instructor of the 1940s and 1950s, a notch above that of the teacher and parson.
Conceptualised by then Agriculture Minister Horace Clarke, RADA's mission "to promote agricultural production as the main engine of growth in rural communities and to ensure the provision of technical, marketing, financial and infra-structural facilities and to provide the social services required for the improvement of the quality of life of farm families" was a blueprint for rural development. And for a while it seemed as if it was happening.
Since 1996 however, agricultural production has been declining especially so in the major export crops. Admittedly, RADA's influence in these is supposed to be minimal as the commodity organisations have their own extension services. But there has been a marked slowing of the growth in most domestic food crops and a decline in a lot of the others. Blame will quickly be placed on a series of severe weather conditions beginning with the long drought in 1996 and almost every year after that followed by half-yearly floods.
There is no denying that those would have had a devastating effect on production. But is that the whole story? Floods and droughts have plagued farming from as far back as memory permits and form part of the risk in farming.
THIS DRASTIC CUT
It seems to me that the real disaster that hit agriculture was the phenomenon of the mid-1990s known as "Down-sizing." Ministries and Departments of Government were considered too large and should therefore be "down-sized" in order to achieve efficiency. RADA, which was established just a few years before by one of the Government's most senior efficiency experts, Dr. Garnet Brown, and staffed with what was considered to be the requisite number of Extension Officers, was a major victim of the process.
Of the 150 Extension Officers that staffed the 13 parish offices in 1990 there are now 60 remaining. Did anyone do the necessary analysis to determine the effect this drastic cut would have on the performance of the sector? Can anyone explain to me how a new agency, carefully developed and established to correct a bad situation and was doing just that, could be handled in that way. Simple logic suggests that if a thing is working well it should be allowed to do its work. Down-sizing is supposed to remove excess fat and waste to achieve greater efficiency. In RADA's case the numbers game resulted in the removal of a good deal of lean and muscle and a depleted extension staff. It was, in effect, returned to the situation that existed before its establishment.
The struggle towards greater agricultural production goes back to the late 1960s with the establishment of 13 Land Authorities along the lines of the very successful Yallahs Valley and Christiana Area Land Authorities of the 1950s. These semi-autonomous bodies never really achieved the success of their earlier models and although they remained in place throughout the 1970s and 1980s agriculture remained moribund. Extension officers, responsible for the transfer of technology, knowledge and skills to farmers, were demoralised by poor salaries, lack of transport and inadequate resources to carry out those functions. It was this situation that Horace Clarke tried to correct when he conceived the idea of an agency along the lines of the Urban Development Corporation to propel rural development.
KNOWLEDGE AND TECHNOLOGY
As a statutory body RADA was able to offer better salaries and working conditions and provide its staff with the necessary tools to do the job. And it began to happen in crops and livestock production, in the transfer of knowledge and technology to farmers, in farm family development through a very vibrant Home Economics and Home Services programme. And then came the cuts and the drying up of resources; and the inevitable decline in production.
Prime Minister Patterson names his Cabinet today. Writing before he does forces me to guess who his Minister of Agriculture will be and I will have to go with Roger Clarke again. Not that he has had great successes but because his heart is in the right place and he has really tried to "find a way." If he gets the resources to strengthen RADA and to rebuild the research facilities and staff them appropriately great things can be achieved. The Prime Minister knows the importance of the farming sector to this country's development and stability. This is his final opportunity to set another record.
Hugh Martin is a communications specialist and farm broadcaster. E-mail: humar@cwjamaica.com.
