Grant : "I think as a country we have allowed politics to get too much in our everyday life and it has so far helped to divide us."

WESTERN BUREAU:

President of the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS), Senator Norman Grant, is calling for a united approach, free of bipartisanship, to improve the agriculture sector and improve the lives of farmers.

"I think as a country, we have allowed politics to get too much into our everyday life and it has so far helped to divide us," Grant said yesterday. "It is not a time for division; it is a time for us to work together for the development of Jamaica."

The JAS president, who sits in the Senate for the People's National Party, also said the mission of the 114-year-old society was to ensure the protection and promotion of farmers' interests through a vigorous, independent and financially viable organisation and that its "agenda has never been coloured by party politics".

Grant was the keynote speaker at the JAS/St James Association of Branch Societies annual general meeting at the St John's Methodist Church in Montego Bay.

He told the gathering that it was his strong belief that all farmers should be effectively served, regardless of political affiliation and location, especially in the present economic crisis the world faces.

"During my period as president over the last six years, I have never been driven by a partisan political agenda. Everyone who has dealt with me as president of the JAS, as head of the PC Bank, cannot say to you that, as president, I have carried out any activities in a partisan way."

Responding to recent media reports which quoted Agriculture Minister Dr Christopher Tufton as saying farming groups had been 'hijacked by political agenda", Grant sought to reassure the minister that he had never been driven by political motivations.

"I don't know if he was misquoted. I'd just like to assure him that the JAS has not, will not, and cannot be hijacked by any party political agenda. The farmers will not allow it," the senator stressed.

He said the JAS was committed to working along with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Rural Agricultural Development Authority for the upliftment of farmers and agriculture in Jamaica.