THE Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS) has focused heavily, over the past three days, on Jamaica's relationship with the Caribbean Community (Caricom), as well as the everyday happenings that go along with farming in this, the largest of the English-speaking islands in the region.
Senator Norman Grant, president of the JAS, has gone on record as objecting to any possibility of Jamaica withdrawing from Caricom as, according to him, Jamaica would suffer greatly if that were to happen.
From a macro perspective, it would make little sense for Jamaica to even entertain the thought of pulling out of Caricom, for even if there are serious trade imbalances, as exists now with Trinidad & Tobago for example, the whole issue of Caribbean unity would be in tatters if Jamaica were to even put the matter of stepping aside to its people.
While Jamaica can stand up and shout from the mountaintop that general trade with Caricom is not all gloom and doom, the specific relationship that Jamaica has with other Caribbean nations, in respect of export of purely agriculture-based items, remains flat.
Nearly all Caribbean countries grow the same crops — bananas, plantains, coconuts, and oranges — with Jamaica, Guyana, Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago still involved in the cultivation of sugar cane.
Caribbean nations produce the various varieties of cash crops and so are able to supply their people with basic domestic needs, save for a country like Antigua & Barbuda for example, which imports 97 per cent of its fruits, vegetables and other crops mainly from the United States.
The question now that a country like Jamaica has to answer is, how can it break through other regional markets with agricultural produce for the Caricom impact to the felt in that sector? It will take some amount of ingenuity for that to happen, and without even placing the matter squarely on the agenda for a roundtable discussion, you can almost hear the howls of dissenting voices already, questioning where the financial resources will come from to fund any large-scale project of its kind.
Caricom aside for now, we hear the same stories year after year, about the problems that farmers face. Again, at the 61st Denbigh Agricultural, Industrial and Food Show, which ended yesterday in Clarendon, farmers were hopping mad about the rapid increase in praedial larceny and the apparent inability of those in authority to do something tangible about it.
Farmers, we are told, lose billions in potential revenue each year as a result of those who prefer to reap rather than sow.
Agriculture Minister Roger Clarke has gone on record as suggesting that the Jamaica Constabulary Force institute a Praedial Larceny Unit to assist with combatting this scourge. What has happened since? Is this going to be just another sweet and juicy talk, or will the constabulary move with alacrity to put things in place?
According to the JAS' Grant, praedial thieves have already landed some farmers in rural Jamaica onto the scrap heap of bankruptcy. Now, we would think that if such a situation was to continue, without being seriously addressed, the number of those on the already long list of the bankrupt would climb to unprecedented levels.
Is this something that we as a nation with a considerably high unemployment rate and spiraling level of poverty want to continue?
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