KINGSTON, Jamaica— The Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) is encouraging farming communities to establish protected seedling centres, to strengthen future recovery efforts.

These are specific areas identified for the development of seedlings for future use.

Seedling centres will be able to provide farmers with plants to help them recover after periods of loss.

Senior Plant Health and Food Safety Officer with RADA, Francine Webb, said that seedling centres should be a community effort.

“There are benefits to farmers coming together within a community, because they would have similar conditions within their locale. Seedling centres can be set up, so you could designate somebody or a group of persons to take responsibility of them, because what we are looking at is the ability to be able to bounce back in as short a time as possible, and so it can help in dividing up the responsibilities,” she said.

Webb explained that well-protected seedling centres should be part of the initial considerations for the recovery of farming communities.

Meanwhile, she is encouraging farmers to stagger their planting days to minimise the risk of losing their crop to a single weather event.

“Depending on your marketing structures you can stagger planting, so that it’s not likely that everything will go down all at once based on a particular event. That kind of system can help in your recovery process as well, where you have the plants at different stages or plants that are able to withstand or to better bounce back quickly, once the system would have passed,” she said.

Farmers seeking technical advice and further assistance with recovery efforts can reach out to RADA at 876-977-1158 or the nearest parish office.

-JIS