PLANS have been intensified in the gathering of data by Jamaica Agricultural Commodities Regulatory Authority (JACRA), to expand the production of spices on the island.

According to director general of the agency Peter Thompson, a baseline assessment is being done which will assist JACRA to determine best practices for supporting farmers under the Food for Progress Jamaica Spices Project – a five-year initiative of the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food for Progress Programme.

“Hopefully, in another couple of months we would creep out of the embryonic stage of this particular project and you will see tangible results. We are now providing a lot of information to farmers, stakeholders, and other investors who might be interested in this project, and we believe that this is going to be a game changer for the agricultural landscape in Jamaica,” he told JIS News in an interview.

He added that a team from JACRA is also working with The University of the West Indies to develop “clean planting materials” to distribute to farmers under the project.

The USDA-sponsored project seeks to increase the yields of Jamaican ginger, turmeric and pimento (allspice) by 50 per cent, as part of efforts to revitalise the country’s spice industry to meet existing export and domestic demands.

It is also aimed at stimulating the spice sector to meet the existing export and domestic demand for turmeric, ginger, and pimento. The project will result in a more diversified, inclusive, sustainable, and climate-resilient spice sector.

JACRA is an agency of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining, with a function to set quality standards, provide quality assurance and certification services, and to govern the trading of several industries in Jamaica.