The following are highlights of the Ministry of Agriculture's plans for the restructuring of the farming sector:

The ministry of agriculture is currently undergoing a restructuring costing $466 million over a three-year period. The aim is to reposition the ministry, to support a more responsive approach to the provision of quality service to the farmers of Jamaica to enhance food production and productivity levels.

Agriculture Minister, Dr Christopher Tufton, told a recent press conference that this came against the background of a 30 and 17 per cent reduction in production and productivity levels, respectively, in terms of food production, and was in keeping with the Government's attempts to be less dependent on imported food.

"The ministry of agriculture has embarked over the last 12 months on an accelerated programme to restructure the ministry in an attempt to become more effective in supporting the farmers, and in boosting production and productivity levels," Dr Tufton said, adding that the recent food crisis was also a factor in the restructuring.

Restructuring

The agriculture minister noted that a proposal was laid four years ago to carry out some restructuring, which resulted in the Forestry Department becoming an executive agency. This process has already started, he pointed out.

"Similarly, a proposal was mooted to restructure the Fisheries Division of the ministry, and that is in progress. In fact, before the end of the calendar year, the hope is to table new legislation to replace the 1976 Fisheries Act, which will attempt to modernise the fisheries sector, as well as the tabling of a policy that will seek to move the process forward.

"There are a number of elements to that, which will include better enforcement, the establishment of fish sanctuaries, better safety measures for fishers at sea, communications equipment, registration, and other forms of technical support," he said.

He pointed out that last year was spent primarily reviewing the ministry and its critical agencies, adding that a consultant was hired to guide the process.

"They submitted a report, and we have been having consultations with the internal as well as external stakeholders, which culminated in this submission to Cabinet," Dr Tufton informed. "Essentially, we are attempting to address a few critical areas - the quality of the extension service to farmers at the local level; the quality of research and development, and training; our capacity to do research and development, and to transfer that research and development in a way, that will allow the farmers to do their jobs better to boost productivity; the marketing capacity of the ministry to assist farmers to understand the requirements of end users, and to help them to provide for those requirements at the primary production level; and the issue of credit - helping farmers to access financing to support their expansion," he explained.

Expanding RADA

The restructuring of RADA has commenced, he said, adding that proposals for the expansion of the staff complement, inclusive of extension officers, have been accepted. He advised that just over 240 extension officers will be required when the restructuring is completed.

"The plan is to double the capacity this year, to 120, and in the next two years to continue that expansion until we reach the optimum level according to the consultant's report," the minister disclosed.

He said the ministry has been recruiting extension officers, noting that 20 new recruits were brought in, with another 40 to come.

"These extension officers will provide technical support to farmers, in areas such as soil preparation and husbandry, as well as marketing, data collection and dissemination on markets, and in the area of business development," Dr Tufton explained.

It is intended that RADA, as the official extension service, will provide a 'one stop' facility that will guide farmers, in terms of approaching farming and agriculture as a business.

"We will have at least one marketing officer who will deal with the data collection of production, who will, in turn forward it to end users in order to facilitate a better flow of information, and avoid the gluts and the shortages that currently occur," he informed.

Also, as part of efforts to restructure the veterinary services, 14 animal health technicians, who would be supervised by the veterinary division, are currently being recruited to strengthen the vet services.

Marketing and credit

Turning to the marketing and credit unit and the agro-business council, Dr Tufton said it is proposed to merge both entities, and create the Agro-Business Coordination Unit. This unit will focus attention on marketing agricultural produce.

"We will have the marketing officers in each parish, and they will collect the data, working with the area extension officers. But that data will be downloaded on a central database, which will be made available at the ministry's central office, and manipulated to provide the appropriate information to the markets, the end users that are out there," the agriculture minister said.

He advised that two marketing specialists are currently working to put this infrastructure in place, "and when this merging takes place, we will see the necessary marketing expertise to assist in providing market information".

In addition, RADA's agro-business information system is to be merged with the databank evaluation division.

Merging units

According to Tufton, the ministry has an underutilised platform, which allows for the uploading of information at the parish level, and facilitates better management of information. He said this, in turn, can be used to support farmers' activities, to allow them to deal with matters such as the scheduling of production, and growing certain types of crops depending on what the market requires.

There are also plans to merge the Agricultural Support Services Programme, which is a special company that was established in the ministry some three years ago, with the Agricultural Development Corporation to create an "entity which we will rebrand, (and) rename, that will be, primarily, responsible for mobilising financing for agriculture, and for dealing with large agricultural projects."