JAMAICA | Grand Promises, Empty Fields, The Agriculture Investment Corporation Decade of Failure

KINGSTON, Jamaica, April 25, 2025 - In the sun-scorched fields of Jamaica's abandoned Agro Parks, the Agricultural Investment Corporation's lofty vision statement rings hollow

For more than a decade, this government entity has collected prime real estate across the island while delivering little more than glossy annual reports and unfulfilled promises to the nation's farmers and consumers.

 Born in 2009 from the merger of the Agricultural Development Corporation and Agricultural Support Services Project, the AIC was supposed to revolutionize Jamaica's farming sector after traditional crops withered under World Trade Organization and International Monetary Fund mandates for economic liberalization.

Instead, it has become a case study in institutional inertia.

The AIC's portfolio reads like a real estate developer's dream: the AMC complex on Spanish Town Road, properties in Wait-A-Bit, Trelawny, Christiana, Manchester, Darliston in

Westmoreland, Guy's Hill in St. Catherine, Brown's Town in St. Ann, and the much-touted Agro Parks. Recently, the corporation signed a memorandum of understanding with the Jamaica Bauxite Institute to acquire thousands more acres—this while showing questionable stewardship over the 10,000 acres already in its possession.

Behind the veneer of success lurks a troubling reality. The AIC proudly trumpeted in its 2015/16 annual report that eight Agro Parks produced 1,795,237 kilograms of vegetables, fruits, and ground provisions from 5,000 acres and employed 15,000 persons. By 2022/23, production allegedly skyrocketed to 15 million kilograms—a staggering 13,204,763 kg increase in eight years. Yet these impressive figures have done little to reduce food import bills or increase Jamaica's agricultural self-sufficiency.

 The 2022 report highlighted other apparent triumphs: a production increase of 178.14 percent, $329 million for the Toll Gate mango Agro Park, and $150 million for the Halland Bamboo agro-processing facility. It also claimed 39 youth farmers received 318 acres of land, bringing total leased acreage to 6,138—a 27 percent increase from the previous year's 4,873 acres. Yet attempts to contact these young agricultural entrepreneurs have proven futile, raising questions about the program's actual implementation.

 The corporation's big-ticket projects appear to exist more on paper than in reality. The much-heralded mango Agro Park, slated to establish 935 acres of mangoes with $329 million in funding, has reportedly planted fewer than 50 acres, according to a confidential source. Even more troubling, no contracts exist for the production of seedlings—the most basic requirement for such an undertaking.

 Similarly, the promised $150 million agro-processing facility at Halland Bamboo in St. Elizabeth remains unstarted by AIC, though a hot pepper sauce company is independently constructing a factory there. Whether the AIC's earmarked funds are involved in this project remains unclear, as does any agreement between the corporation and the sauce manufacturer.

Perhaps most emblematic of the AIC's dysfunction is its partnership with the National Irrigation Commission on the Essex Valley irrigation project. Launched in 2014 with a British grant of 35 million pounds and approximately J$3 billion in government contributions, the project drilled nine wells—only five of which are actually serviceable—to irrigate 1,700 acres. 

 Today, the project languishes with no clear plan to correct its deficiencies. The energy costs for running the five pumps would be prohibitive even with solar power, making the entire undertaking economically unfeasible for the farmers it was meant to serve.

 Other initiatives fare no better. The Southern Clarendon and St. Catherine Agricultural Development Project, intended to irrigate 4,114 acres with a 2023 completion date, has left farmers in the dark about its status. Storage containers at the New Forrest/Duff House Agro Park in Manchester sit unused, while promises of storage and irrigation systems for the Plantain Garden River Agro Park in St. Thomas remain unfulfilled.

 A potentially promising partnership between Jamaica Flour Mills and AIC to lease 1,600 acres for gluten-free flour production using mango, sweet potato, and cassava lacks any progress reports. And under the chairmanship of Vitus Evans, the once-touted Sea Island Cotton Project in St. Catherine has simply disappeared—another victim of the AIC's chronic inability to follow through.

 It's little wonder that the Jamaica Social Investment Fund is now being used to implement projects that would normally fall under the AIC's purview. The corporation increasingly resembles a rudderless vessel adrift on the open ocean, rather than the sure-footed agricultural development engine Jamaica desperately needs.

 Despite controlling property worth billions across every parish, the AIC has shown precious little in terms of increased food production or affordability since its inception. With food security concerns mounting globally, the time has come for this agricultural white elephant to either prove its worth or face a long-overdue reckoning.

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