JAMAICA'S Agriculture at a Crossroads: Breaking the Cycle of Unfulfilled Promise Says Lenworth Fulton

It's time to stop lamenting agricultural failures and start building on the successes we already have

KINGSTON, Jamaica, September 26, 2025 — Jamaica's agricultural sector tells a story of contradictions. While we perpetually bemoan the collapse of traditional export crops and cooperative failures, we conveniently ignore a remarkable achievement: our farmers produced approximately 800,000 tons of food in 2021/22, along with adequate supplies of broiler meat, eggs, and pork. This isn't failure—it's the foundation for food security we've been desperately seeking.

Yet this production triumph remains undermined by systemic failures that have plagued our agricultural sector for decades. The time for excuses has passed; Jamaica needs bold solutions to unlock agriculture's potential to feed both our people and our crucial tourism sector.

Success Stories We're Not Celebrating

The ALEX marketing platform, a collaborative effort between RADA and the Tourism Enhancement Fund, proves that innovative approaches work. Since early 2024, this platform has generated over $100 million in sales, connecting farmers directly with the hotel sector. This isn't just impressive—it's transformational proof that modern marketing and distribution can revolutionize how we approach agricultural commerce.

But ALEX remains an isolated success in a sea of inefficiency. Most farmers still depend on exploitative middlemen who profit while producers struggle. This cycle continues because farmers remain reluctant to join progressive organizations like JAS or cooperatives that could strengthen their negotiating power and market access.

The Financial Stranglehold

The elephant in the room is our crippled financial system. For forty years, farmers have faced an impossible barrier: no access to capital. The People's Cooperative Bank, once agriculture's financial lifeline, now operates as a shadow of its former self, while no other financial institution shows genuine interest in agricultural lending.

This isn't just disappointing—it's economically destructive. The PC Bank must urgently reorganize and seek capital through the stock market, making funds available to farmers online. Furthermore, PC Bank should issue a prospectus for bond placements, collaborating with entities like the Agricultural Insurance Company to target agro-park development.

Individual subsectors—citrus, banana, mango, cattle, small ruminants—should partner with financial houses to prepare prospectuses for private funding. If we can finance hotels and shopping centers, we can certainly finance food production.

Management Failures and Missed Opportunities

Project management in agriculture has become a textbook case of how not to implement development initiatives. The Essex Valley Irrigation System, signed as an EU grant by the late Roger Clarke, remains incomplete years later. This unconscionable delay has robbed farmers of increased productivity and rural communities of desperately needed employment.

The solution requires professional accountability. Jamaica's trained agriculturalists must establish a professional organization similar to the Bar Association or Master Builders Association, providing a pool of qualified project managers instead of relying on political cronies and unqualified friends.

Land Use Priorities: Housing vs. Food Security

Jamaica faces a fundamental policy contradiction: while preaching food security, we continue converting prime agricultural land—particularly former sugar estates—into housing developments. This short-sighted approach sacrifices long-term food production capacity for immediate development profits.

Former sugar lands represent some of our most fertile, well-irrigated agricultural real estate. Converting these lands to housing is not just economically wasteful—it's strategically dangerous. Food security requires secure land tenure for agricultural use, not piecemeal development that fragments our most productive agricultural zones.

Perhaps we should explore the mandatory practice of reserving a fixed percentage of housing development lands for agricultural development in an effort to further our national food secutity solution. After all which is more important? Food or shelter?

The Technology Revolution We're Missing

While other Caribbean nations embrace technological agriculture, Jamaica remains locked in traditional farming methods that limit productivity and climate resilience. The future of food security lies in controlled environment agriculture: greenhouses, hydroponics, and vertical farming systems that maximize yield per square foot while conserving water and reducing pesticide use.

These technologies aren't experimental—they're proven solutions that could transform Jamaica's agricultural output while making our food system more resilient to climate change. Government policy should incentivize this technological pivot instead of treating farming as an exclusively outdoor, rain-dependent activity.

Storage: The Silent Productivity Killer

Storage inadequacies represent perhaps our most overlooked crisis. Coffee cannot be stored alongside onions, pimento, or ginger, yet we lack dedicated facilities for each commodity. Shockingly, JACRA, tasked with coffee quality control, operates without a dedicated coffee warehouse—a situation that virtually guarantees post-harvest losses.

The 2023 onion crisis, where small farmers across the island suffered devastating post-harvest losses, should serve as a wake-up call. Onions are a priority crop with widespread small farmer participation, yet we provide no adequate storage infrastructure.

The government must immediately identify and develop storage solutions for priority crops while also investing in climate-controlled facilities that support technological farming methods. This isn't a luxury—it's basic agricultural infrastructure that should have been built decades ago.

Farmer Responsibility and Record-Keeping

Farmers themselves must also step up. Professional agriculture requires professional record-keeping, including audited financial statements. Banks won't lend to businesses that can't demonstrate financial accountability, and farmers who want to access serious capital must treat their operations as serious businesses.

This isn't about imposing bureaucracy—it's about empowering farmers with the tools they need to access capital markets and grow their operations sustainably.

A Vision for Agricultural Transformation

Jamaica's agricultural potential isn't hypothetical—it's demonstrated by our current production levels achieved despite systemic obstacles. Imagine what we could accomplish with proper financial support, protected agricultural lands, technological farming methods, modern storage facilities, professional project management, and expanded platforms like ALEX.

We need to stop treating agriculture as a welfare sector and start recognizing it as an economic engine capable of ensuring food security while supporting our tourism industry. This means protecting prime agricultural land from housing development, embracing greenhouse and hydroponic technologies, and creating the infrastructure necessary for modern food production.

The 800,000 tons of food our farmers already produce proves that Jamaican agriculture works when supported properly. It's time to build systems worthy of our farmers' proven capabilities while safeguarding the land and embracing the technology necessary for long-term food security.

The choice is ours: continue lamenting past failures or build on present successes to create agricultural abundance.