One of the island’s youngest female poultry farmers and Jamaica Broilers Group’s (JBG) champion farmer Shelly-Ann Dinnall was specially selected by the World Bank to participate in a live panel discussion in Washington DC on the future of agriculture.

The panel discussion entitled: ‘Future Harvest: Who Will Grow Tomorrow’s Food?’ was live-streamed globally on October 11, and integrated questions from online viewers.

Dinnall was the only representative from the Caribbean, the Jamaica Observer was told.

The one-hour live discussion was moderated by international journalist Femi Oke, and gave voice to young farmers who are bringing their commitment and business skills to agriculture.

Dinnall was one of four speakers who shared their challenges and breakthroughs — from using solar power to lower the costs of poultry farming in Jamaica to growing fresh greens for a small café in Kampala, Uganda; making farming viable for young women in remote Western Australia; and practising large-scale agro-ecology in the state of São Paolo, Brazil.

Since then, the young Jamaican farmer has been incorporated in the World Bank Group promotional video highlighting the bank’s important meetings held during 2017.

In 2015 the representatives of the JBG and the World Bank team of Gayle Young and Peter Vincent Von Elling visited Dinnall’s farm and produced the Youtube video entitled ‘Solar Power in Jamaica’. It was subsequently submitted to lead communications officer at the World Bank, Flore Martinat De Preneuf, who invited Dinnall to participate in the panel discussion.

“Shelly-Ann was the obvious choice from Jamaica because she has an enviable track record of achievement as a young, female poultry farmer since she became involved in her family business 11 years ago …and [has won] champion trophies from the annual Denbigh Agriculture Show for being among the island’s best,” said Pamella Russell of JBG.

Dinnall’s success story was posted on the highly respected World Bank website ahead of the panel discussion.

The young farmer started with two tunnel houses contracted to JBG and 80 per cent of the debt remaining on investment, but was able to, over the years, increase to six tunnel houses. She invested in solar panels which reduced the electricity bill by 55 per cent.

Her vision is to expand even further and have a diverse farm with poultry being the mainstay, and invest in more solar panels to further reduce production costs.

“It was a wonderful experience and I am privileged to have been a part of a very important message,” said Dinnall.