AT least two agriculture-based projects, established through a partnership between Jamaica and Canada, have earned rave reviews from Canada’s Minister of International Development Harjit Sajjan.

His reaction came after a tour of facilities and farms in Trelawny, St Ann and Manchester as well as his interaction with a number of stakeholders involved in the projects — mainly small farmers. He was particularly pleased to see how locals have benefited.

“I’m very satisfied; in fact… it has actually exceeded my expectations,” Sajjan said last Thursday while at an Irish potato farm in Cascade, St Ann.

The initial programme, the Promotion of Regional Opportunities for Produce through Enterprises and Linkages (PROPEL), a multi-country endeavour which ran from 2013 to 2018, provided farmers with expert guidance in developing ties with processors and buyers through a CAD$20-million grant. Part of that project saw farmers benefiting from access to high-quality seeds for certain crops. This has led to improvements in the quality of produce and also provided farmers with the means to sell seeds and produce to processors and other buyers.

“By teaching people about using gold-quality seeds you’re able to then do second and third planting and then making sure that you take your own seeds and plant it…Rather than just purchasing the seeds, you are now able to continue to plant, and each farmer is doing this so it’s actually creating really good, sustainable opportunities,” the minister remarked.

One of the success stories coming out of the project has been Irish potatoes.

“One of the things I love is that before, in Jamaica, you had all the potatoes that were imported and now you’ve got here close to 40 per cent of the potatoes are actually coming from Jamaica. That’s what we want,” Sajjan said.

He was joined on his visit by Canadian High Commissioner to Jamaica, Emina Tudakovic who also expressed her delight about the project.

“It’s making sure that when farmers put their hard work in there that their crops do not get destroyed by the rain because they don’t have the good seeds etc,” she highlighted.

These and similar projects, Sajjan insisted, have the ability to assist Jamaica on a much wider scale.

“We actually want to see Jamaica succeed; we want to see more jobs here, growing the economy,” he declared.

After the PROPEL project ended the Canadian Government again provided the same level of funding for a new initiative, Sustainable Agriculture in the Caribbean (SAC). SAC is aimed at promoting climate-resilient agriculture and mainly focuses on women and youth. Implemented in 2021, the project is expected to run through to 2026.

Both PROPEL and SAC are implemented by the World University Service of Canada. Sajjan hopes these successful initiatives will be replicated.

“What I am actually looking for here is what we can learn from here and how we can take these lessons to other parts of the Caribbean. But, more importantly, I am really interested in how we can take these lessons to other parts of the world,” he remarked.