Genetically modified plants for agriculture revitalization

It seems that there are plans to revive the Agriculture Sector, as Dr. Christopher Tufton, Minister of Agriculture, has made clear in his speeches around the island. There has been much talk that Agriculture is not being properly organized and praedial larceny plagues the industry and all other reasons are being used as the blame for the reason why Jamaica, the “land of wood and water”, ironically still has to import most of the food that it consumes on the island for abroad, particularly from the United States of America and China, or even from our Caribbean neighbors, despite having ample fertile land.

There have been attempts in the past, but they had failed due to one simple reason: farming is inherently wasteful process, as any farmer will tell you. You will spend millions on fertilizer, even when it is subsidized, and never make a cent from the sale of your crops if the price on the world market drops. The only persons who makes money from farming are the persons who make value added products from your reaped fruit or vegetables, and the only way you as a farmer makes any money at all is if you are the owner and maker of these value added products.

An example readily comes to mind and that is the production of rum by Appleton Estates, wherein J. Wray and Nephew owns the sugar estates and makes the rum, the profit from which is used to make sugar cane farming profitable.

And even more potent example is the production of anhydrous ethanol from sugar cane by the company JB Ethanol, which makes the product to be exported to the United States of America to make E85. But still no one has addressed the inherent problem of farming that of the natural inefficiency of plants themselves, yet we possess the tools that should make it possible: genetic engineering. And the best means of testing out this idea of using genetically engineered crops is Spring Plains. 

Spring Plains/St. Jago Farms properties are currently under the stewardship of the NIBJ (National Investment Bank of Jamaica), which has been charged with their divestment of the currently idle lands to potential investors, among who it is rumored to be several local and foreign interests. In the area where I live in Rest, Milk River, Spring Plains/St. Jago Farms was a source of massive employment in the 80’s and a technological marvel to many, as equipment and tractors, never before seen by any of the people in the area, as some recalled, were brought into the Development and farming of this fertile valley.

This was being financed by a Mr. Eli Tisona, an Israeli investor who had ploughed millions of investors’ money into developing the hundred of acres of fertile land during the 1980’s. But Spring Plains/St. Jago Farms was not just the dream of a foreign investor.

At the time, it was an agricultural showpiece of the then Prime Minister Edward Seaga, a model of what the Jamaica farm of the 21st century would look like, growing sweet potatoes, sweet pepper, mangoes and other fruits and vegetables, built with the financial blessing of the then Government of Jamaica as a part of a “winter vegetable” project in order to produce crops of all varieties both for the export, the surplus being sold on the local market.

However despite the good intentions, bumper crops and the employment that this utopian vision of farming may have engendered among the people working in the area, it was not economically feasable. From the very day that it began operation during period from 1982 to 1986 within which the farm was said to be productive, it incurred losses of nearly JA$135 million as stated in the article “Spring Plains divestment awaits Cabinet approval”, published publishes Saturday 7th April 2002 by Petulia Clarke, Staff Reporter, The Jamaica Gleaner.

According to the article, Eli Tisona was himself later banned from entering Jamaica in 1998 by the ruling PNP as he had been convicted of narcotics trafficking and money laundering charges in the United States of America, though the JLP has pointed out that his convictions occurred after the failure of Spring Plains/St. Jago Farms. Since then there have been numerous attempts to divest the lands by the PNP, but to no avail, as each investor who approached the then Government of Jamaica had ideas but could not provide financial funding to support their ambitions and neither could they demonstrate that they could make the farm profitable.

This was a difficult task, as most large scale farms are rarely profitable due to praedial larceny, water wastage, high interest rates of local and foreign borrowing, the high cost of input material, the unstable commodities market and competition from farming powerhouses such as China and North and South America who heavily subsidize farming in their countries.

Today the Spring Plains/St. Jago Farms properties are being utilized by Grace Kennedy in their Agro Grace Aquaculture Facility which raises Fresh Water Tilapia for local and export markets. Jamalco also mines the hills for bauxite and the remaining Spring Plains lands have been graded and the overgrowth removed, ostensibly by the JLP, as the activity on the land began as recently as 2009. Is this a sign of a return to farming on these still fertile yet idle lands? 

I hope it is. Even better if the Dr. Christopher Tufton, Minister of Agriculture decided to embrace the concept of using genetically engineered crops that are not only resistant to pests and disease, such as the new varieties of rice being grown in a test pilot that needed a lot less water than other varieties. Genetically engineered crops significantly reduce the usage of pesticides and fertilizers, and results in plants that mature much faster, thus reducing not only the usage of water but also the turnaround time from planting to reaping, as is currently the case in the EU as stated in the article “GM Potato to be grown in the EU”, published Wednesday March 3^rd 2010,  The UK Guardian.

After much opposition in the past by the Europeans to the introduction of genetically engineered crops, they have finally decided to introduce them, as they realize that with further research, they can be made to be as suggested above, making it unnecessary to provide incentives and subsidies to make the inputs into farming artificially cheaper in order to compete with developing world farming powerhouses like China which basically can mass produce crops without then need for such incentives and subsidies.

Thus, all that is needed is a suitable investor, such as Telecom Provider Digicel, to plough money into the farming of the Spring Plains area in conjunction with the University of the West Indies, who can introduce genetically modified crops that would not only make farming actually more efficient, but combined with alternative energy, cheap enough to be competitive with even the United States of America and even China and their mass production of food.

Thus Jamaica can tap into the growing market for food as will surely occur as the world is now on the brink of the greatest food shortage, brought on by the recession in the United States of America, which is projected to last seven (7) years due to its reliance on debt to encourage spending in the short term, its abundance of ill-placed faith in the Services Sector and lack of investment in the Production Sector.

This Second Recession, referred to as a Double Dip Recession or “W” shaped Recession Recovery as opposed to a long term “U” shaped Recession Recovery is a theory which is echoed by Dennis Chung in the article “RISK OF A DOUBLE-DIP RECESSION?” published Friday, September 18, 2009, contributed by Dennis Chung, Business Observer. If Jamaica is still has an economy dependent on oil and still importing oil for energy purposes by 2015 with no net investment (local and foreign) and increase in production as opposed to an emphasis on services, the global inflationary effect that this increase in the main driver of production will have will most certainly force the entire world into a Second Recession, as is now possible and shaping up to occur in the United States of America.  

Like Energy, we need to make Agriculture production as energy efficient as is the intention of Senator James Robertson, Minister of Energy and Mining, as it is well known that the Senator James Robertson, Minister of Energy, has made statements in Parliament in 2009 that indicate a soon coming liberalization of the Energy Sector as indicated by the Energy Policy.

There, however, has still been no news from his Energy Ministry as to when LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) imports from the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago are set to reach Jamaica and the preparations made by the Government of Jamaica with regard to Storage and Distribution of LNG. As well as preparations by the Bauxite industry and the JPS Co (Jamaica Power Service Company)  in terms of modifying and changing (if necessary) their generators to use the new fuel, as stated in the article “LNG for Jamaica a national priority – Manning”, published Friday June 26, 2009, The Friday Gleaner, by Linda Hutchinson-Jafar, Business Writer,  The Jamaica Gleaner.

Despite having now being given the ailing Air Jamaica , which we needed to get off our books, as indicated by the sale of Air Jamaica properties in the article “Gov't selling off Air Jamaica properties”, published Thursday February 11, 2010 by Philip Hamilton, Gleaner Writer, The Jamaica Gleaner.  

Thus, it is being suggested that to achieve this level of efficiency, Dr. Christopher Tufton, Minister of Agriculture needs to lay out an Agriculture Policy that includes the usage of genetically engineered crops that will not only reduce the production time of crops and thus make Agriculture overall cheaper, using Spring Plains as the test bed for these technologies.

This could be then expanded to the rest of the island, combined with real time monitoring of rain and water resources islandwide with the help of a telecommunications partner installing weather stations on each cell tower to produce hyper accurate rainfall and wind maps of the island, making Agriculture, for once, a very efficient enterprise.