Black River, St. Elizabeth

Despite more than five months of planning, the upgrading of the Black River Market in St. Elizabeth is yet to take place.

Speaking at a recent meeting at the St. Elizabeth Parish Council, councillor for the Black River division, Kern Smalling, said the committee had a meeting but there was no clear indication as to when the facility would be upgraded. He said the committee will be holding additional meetings with the residents to sensitise them about the planned upgrading of the market facility.

- Rayon Dyer

Spanish Town, St. Catherine

The Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, as a way of playing a critical role in national food security and the export of raw materials to the agro industry sub-sector, has put forward a sum of $200 million to improve organic farming.

Agriculture Minister Roger Clarke made the announcement last week when several organic farmers held a workshop at the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) in Linstead. The money will be spent to improve organic practices in small ruminants, apiculture, aquaculture and fruit tree crop and other forms of organic agriculture. About $20 million of the sum has already been allocated to support the development of organic production over the next two years.

- Rasbert Turner

Spanish Town, St. Catherine

Minister of Education and Youth, Maxine Henry-Wilson, says that, come September, there will be changes at the Braeton Primary and Junior High School as the primary school section of the facility will commence its three-year phase out activity starting with grades one and two.

The Education Minister made the announcement while touring the facilities Thursday afternoon. She told reporters that she was pleased with the progress that has been made and that all will be done in time for the new school term wich starts on Monday.

- Rasbert Turner

Kingston

The Urban Electricity Regularisation Programme (UERP), set up some three years ago, is fulfilling its mandate of addressing the problem of illegal electricity connection in inner-city areas in Kingston and helping residents to regularise supplies.

Initially, the Government's main priority was to ensure that citizens in rural communities had access to electricity through the Rural Electrification Programme (REP), but when the illegal connections in urban areas started to spiral out of control, the UERP was set up in 2003 to stem the problem.

General manager of REP, Keith Garvey, told JIS News that it was "a mammoth task," to attend to both issues at once, but "since both were equally urgent, we had to move toward solutions. At one point, we had people, though not very many, without connections to the national grid, while others had illegal connections, enjoying the convenience of electricity at the expense of others."

PORT ANTONIO, Portland

Farmers in Portland are being urged to work closely with the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) office in the parish, to benefit from programmes to promote agricultural development.

RADA Parish Manager for Portland, Crawford Clarke, who was addressing a community meeting on Wednesday at the Fair Prospect Primary School, said RADA was committed to working with the farmers to place Portland's farming sector on the cutting edge of agricultural production.

He pointed out that initiatives such as tree planting, farmer registration, marketing, and the home economics and social services projects, provided opportunities for farmers to increase their earnings.

Noting that RADA was also integrally involved in school gardening projects in several educational institutions in the parish, Mr. Clarke said the projects were specially designed to sensitise the young people about the importance of agriculture and to appreciate the financial gains which could accrue from the sector.