Rayon Dyer, Gleaner Writer

Black River, St. Elizabeth:

Some farmers in southern St. Elizabeth are looking towards a number of new marketing initiatives in the new year that are expected to boost agricultural production in the parish.

At the same time, they cited several factors which could pose a problem. Speaking with Farmers' Weekly, veteran farmer, Marcel Ebanks, said that it would be especially challenging for farmers who produce the traditional cash crops such as water melon, scallion, thyme, lettuce, cucumber and cantaloupe.

Flavour extraction plant

However, "with a highly-equipped flavour extraction plant that will be fully on stream this year, this is one of the things I am looking forward to because I see it as one of the positives happening for agriculture in the year ahead."

The veteran farmer noted that "the marketing of fresh produce has always been a problem and we trust that farmers will this year reap maximum benefits from their activities."

Delworth Brooks, another farmer, pointed to the formation of community-based farmers' groups as another positive initiative that would allow for better organisation and results.

"I am very optimistic that there are some bright prospects in agriculture if we implement the basic things to drive the sector forward," he said.

"However, I am concerned that more and more farmers need to be brought up to speed with the pace of technology in agriculture. We are still going to have problems if our farmers are not educated about crop variety as well as proper farming technique," said Claude Taylor, another farmer.