Hugh Martin
AGRICULTURE AND Land Minister, Roger Clarke, in his post-Budget presentation press conference last month ruefully admitted that the sector, under his administration, has been under-performing.
"We don't have a problem of marketing" he declared. "We have a problem of production. We have markets for everything we produce but there is no production. We have market for coffee but no production. Pimento, cocoa, we have markets but no production. Beef - no production. We are just producing 25 per cent of lamb meat. When it comes to mutton the same thing and although the Jamaican goat meat is so expensive in comparison to the imported one the people want the Jamaican goat meat but they can't get it."
MARKETING PRODUCE
"The only time I come under pressure for marketing something is like you know we have some good rain and then you hear out of St. Elizabeth that 'we have too much tomato; we can't sell we tomato'. And there might be another time when we can't sell cabbage. But after that two or three week break, the people start coming to me that they want to import cabbage and tomato. This happens because the production systems are not in place to deal with consistent supply."
The minister is, of course, right. You can't market what you haven't produced. The farmers have failed to produce on a consistent basis and in sufficient quantities the crops for which there is a constant demand. They ought to be producing tomatoes and cabbages in the so called rain-fed areas even when there is a protracted drought. And shouldn't they find ways and means to bring their produce out of the deep rural areas where truck owners refuse to go because of the poor condition of the roads? And of course they should know how to grade and package their foodstuff and to deliver it to the hotels which demand such quality and consistency of supply but seem to have a difficulty in paying for it in good time.
The thing about the minister's analysis of the problem is that no one can find fault with it. Where the problem begins, it seems to me, is in determining the ownership of the responsibility. Mr. Clarke undoubtedly hugs up the role of finding markets for whatever is produced and is unhappy that the farmers are not making full use of his expertise in this area. This is in striking contrast to one of his predecessors who emphatically rejected that role with a crisp "I don't jerk pork at Hope" when pig farmers, faced with a glut of pork on their hands, called on him for help.
But the minister seems unaware that his inactivity in the accepted role of marketing is directly related to his seeming reluctance to own the responsibility for establishing the production systems which he admits are absent. When farmers are unable to get their crops out of the fields because the roads are in a deplorable condition they are not going to produce more than they can carry on their heads or by donkey.
PRIORITY
In the same way they won't produce where they can't get water in their tanks during a drought period. And they won't continue to produce the crops that brought them reasonable returns for their efforts when they find their usual outlets cut off because cheap imports have wooed away their regular buyers.
The minister has announced that agriculture will be one of the Government's top priority areas for growing the economy. He knows that farmers will produce if they are assured that there is a ready market and a reasonable price for their crops but even that is dependent on the production systems being in place. He is convinced that the market is there and that the price is good. Let him fix the infrastructure and he will begin to feel real pressure for a proper marketing system that does not now exist.
Hugh Martin is a communication consultant and farm broadcaster. He may be contacted at humar@cwjamaica.com
