Hugh Martin YESTERDAY'S EDITION of The Gleaner carried a Vox Pop feature with the question: "Do you think that agriculture is being taken seriously by the Government?"
There were five persons responding. Of the three females two were housewives and the third identified only as a senior citizen while the two males comprised a businessman and a technician. Interestingly, there was no farmer. All five believed the Government was not serious about agriculture and were in remarkable agreement on the reasons for that conclusion. If the government was really concerned about agriculture it would:
- cut the price of fertilisers
- help farmers to acquire land and
- reduce the importation of foreign foods and assist the farmers in marketing
their crops.
PROMOTING GROWTH
Only a week before, Finance and Planning Minister, Dr. Omar Davies, in his Budget presentation and later in his post-Budget press conference, stated that emphasis would be placed on the agricultural sector in the drive to promote growth in the economy. And Agriculture Minister Roger Clarke, speaking at the Montpelier agricultural show on Easter Monday announced that Government, through the state-owned Development Bank of Jamaica (DBJ), would be pumping $300 million into the sector in an effort to boost production. This, he said would be in addition to the allocation to his ministry which showed an increase of $140 million.
"We know that the farmers of this country are resilient all they need is a little push and we are prepared to give them that little push this year," Mr. Clarke declared. "That 'little' push this year". Perhaps that is the problem. Too little too late and that could be where the perception of lack of concern arose. Where are the big plans to get the sector rolling? The Minister made his budget presentation in the House on Wednesday and one expected to see big headlines in the Gleaner the following day about those plans.
Instead you had to turn to page nine to see a reference to the Agriculture Minister's contribution and then that was only on a paper on the sugar industry tabled for later discussion. It does seem strange that the nationally announced plans of a major sector on which the Government claims it intends to pin its hopes for growth are so obviously ignored. What is no secret is that the Ministry has come to the realisation that the sector will not survive if it continues on the present path that has seen the decline of almost every crop and the greater portion of the livestock industry.
FAILURE TO KEEP ABREAST
Much of this decline has come about as a result of our failure to keep abreast of developments in science and technology and to prepare ourselves for the changes in the international arena before we were flung headlong into them.
The Jamaican small farmer has been castigated for his inability to compete with the imported products that have flooded our supermarkets and green groceries since liberalisation in the early nineties.
COST OF PRODUCTION
What has not been taken into account though is the severe disadvantage at which he finds himself when it comes to the cost of production inputs. He has never been able to recover from the increase in interest rates from nine per cent to 21 per cent in 1991. Compare these rates with the two per cent the US farmers pay. The Farmers Lobby Group, formed to represent the interest of farmers at the time warned that such high rates would mean the death of farmers. Their efforts were to no avail and their words have come to haunt us now.
The next big cost to the farmer is that of fertiliser which keeps climbing out of their reach. In order to reduce costs some farmers reduce the amount they supply but this only results in a decline in yields and their situation is worsened. This situation repeats itself in the case of the other inputs such as water, herbicides, and labour. The truth is, the playing field is not level and the measures available under the WTO to allow for the adjustments were not applied early enough to assist the farmer.
The Minister of Finance, in announcing the imposition of GCT on imported agricultural produce, has demonstrated the Government's responsiveness, late though it be, to the constant cry of the local farmer. It would seem though that it is too late to change the perception of the people that it is not serious about agriculture.
Hugh Martin is a communication specialist and farm broadcaster. E-mail: humar@cwjamaica.com.
