ST JAMES, Jamaica— Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce with oversight responsibility for Agriculture and Fisheries, Audley Shaw, is encouraging farmers who were part of the sugar industry to pivot into planting other crops.

“The sugar industry has been in decline, but I want to use this opportunity to remind everyone, including our farmers [that] there are other opportunities. Everywhere sugar cane grows, mango orchards can grow, everywhere sugar cane can grow, ackee orchards can grow,” he said.

“Ackee orchards, they could focus on that, and mango orchards, and other long-term tree crops,” Shaw encouraged.

The minister also highlighted that National Geographic magazine in the United States declared Jamaica’s national dish, ackee and saltfish, the second-best dish in the world.

“So now we have to start exporting ackee and saltfish as a finished product in the can, not just ackee alone in the can, but ackee and saltfish,” he said.

Shaw was speaking during the official opening ceremony of AUSTROJAM Ltd’s cold-storage facility at their Bluntas, St Elizabeth location, on Saturday.