Jamaica’s tradition for producing a wide range of agricultural produce to meet the needs of local consumers as well as to ‘cash in’ on opportunities on the export markets, notably in the agro-processing sector has been, reportedly, coming under critical scrutiny on account of what a report in the February 28th issue of The Observer newspaper says has been “a decline in a number of traditional crops locally,” a circumstance which the report says “have seen stakeholders across the agricultural sector calling for improved policies geared towards rebuilding.”
Asserting that production of a number of traditional produce “continues to trend downward,” the article says that the trend has generated concern for the future of food security in the CARICOM member country. Jamaica and Guyana have traditionally been regarded as the agriculture giants among member countries of CARICOM though the island nation is known to have surged ahead of the rest of the region, in capturing extra regional markets for some agricultural commodities in North America for both its farm produce and its agro-processed commodities.
