WESTERN BUREAU — Minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Agriculture, JC Hutchinson says more attention is to be given to the thousands of farmers islandwide who are not utilising agro-park facilities.

Addressing the 33rd staging of the annual Montpelier Agriculture and Industrial Show in St James on Easter Monday, Hutchinson argued that agro-parks are currently unable to solve the problems besetting the sector.

“The agro-parks at its concept now caters to 5,000 farmers. But, I say, what happens to the other 250,000 farmers who have been out there carrying on agriculture for this country? They are not given attention,” asserted Hutchinson.

“It is about time that those farmers who are not on agro-parks be given more serious attention, because they have been the ones who have been carrying the strength like the Jamaica Agricultural Society, to move agriculture forward in this country,” he said.

Meanwhile, Hutchinson said that his ministry plans to halt the distribution of farm supplies to farmers through their Members of Parliament [MPs].

“We intend to make sure that all the inputs that come through RADA [Rural Agricultural Development Authority], that is fertiliser, seeds, spray, whatever it is coming through RADA, will go directly to the farmer and not to us the Members of Parliament,” he stressed.

“What you see happening is that when the funds come to us as Members of Parliament, we give it to our favourite people, and many of them are not farmers. But, when they get it, they turn around and sell it to those persons who can make quick bucks. So we are going to cut that out, and we are going put the structure in place where we have systems where anything coming from RADA will go straight to the farmers,” he said.

— Anthony Lewis