How US$24 million in Jamaican Agricultural Exports Lost and Why Agricultural Towers are Necessary

“It is somewhat underutilised right now; there is the capacity for a lot more traffic to go through those pre-clearance centres”

US agricultural attache to the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica, Morgan Perkins lamenting Jamaican Farmers not exporting more crops

Jamaican Farmers, listen up as this article is all about you.

Jamaican farmer are failing to produce crops for export despite having receive clearance to do so as reported in the article “Farmers Flunking ... Failing To Fill US Demand For Tomatoes, Sweet Pepper, Cucumber And Other Produce”, Published Sunday May 22, 2016  by Ryon Jones, The Jamaica Gleaner. 

So says the US agricultural attache to the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica, Morgan Perkins, who states that Jamaican farmers are missing out on a US$24 million worth Organic Foods Market.

Jamaica, through a MOU (memorandum of understanding) between the JAS (Jamaica Agricultural Society) and the NACE (National Association of Christian Educators) has preclearance to export 50 commodities to the United States.

Despite this, Jamaica is still failing to meet the demand for these agricultural products:

1.      Bell peppers

2.      Cabbage

3.      Carrots

4.      Chinese melons

5.      Chinese okras

6.      Corn

7.      Cucumber

8.      Cucumbers

9.      Eggplants

10.  Irish potatoes

11.  Okra

12.  Onions

13.  Squash

14.  String beans

15.  Sweet peppers

16.  Sweet potatoes

17.  Tomatoes

18.  Turnip green

This has resulted in a loss of revenue to the country. Worse, Jamaica has a US Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Plant Protection and Quarantine, Preclearance Offshore Programs at the Norman Manley and Donald Sangster international airports.

So having your agricultural products inspected before leaving the island is a fairly easy process, making it less of a hassle as you know right then and there if your produce will be accepted, to quote Mr. Morgan Perkins:  “There are actual USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) personnel at these preclearance centre who are supervising inspection and fumigation of agricultural products for shipment to the United States. This ensures that products arrive in the US they are going to go through inspection much more quickly and going to encounter much less problems with pest and diseases”.

So what's the cause of the short supply?

Improving Jamaica's Agriculture - How Agricultural Towers use Landspace more efficient in the City

It seems to be a matter of quality and quantity to quote Mr. Perkins: “The products on that list that are not going to the US are generally not going because they are not being produced in the quantity and quality that need to be produced in order to go to the US. There is a lot of demand for those products. So if you have a good-quality product, you can easily get it into the big wholesale markets and it will be just swallowed right up”.

Dominica seems to have the right attitude; they're exporting million of dollars worth of produce, filing demand and displacing the millions that Jamaica can potentially supply if our farming was more structured. This as Dominica has learned to capitalize on America's harsh winters, when production levels are lower, thus providing ready market for whatever they produce at whatever price.

Drought is no longer an issue as with the increased rains and proper water resources management, we can even grow onions as explained in my blog article entitled “Why Onion Development Programme by Agriculture Ministry hints at Drought Resistant Crops in the Future”.

The use of Agricultural Towers to allow plants to grow 24/7 hydroponically and utilize aquaponics to fertilize the plants in a climate controlled environment should be considered as explained in my blog article entitled “How IGES Canada Ltd Vertical Hydroponic Aquaponic Towers make low cost Organic foods”. 

Rainwater Harvesting would make it possible for Agricultural towers to capture rainwater for irrigation as noted in my blog article entitled “How NWC’s Water Conservation in Drought 2016 means Rainwater Harvesting with Digital Meters”.

Developing plants that require less water or even seawater such as CARDI's Salt water loving Dasheen as explained in my blog article entitled “How CARDI's Salt Water loving Dasheen and Agricultural Towers can help Pacific islands and Jamaica during Drought” would make Jamaican agriculture efficient enough to produce the quality and quantity for the entire island and for export.

Being as our farming is mostly organic, recycling organic waste would make farming more economically feasible as noted in my blog article entitled “Why Knockalva Enterprises Limited can solve Jamaica's Organic Waste, Bio-Fuel and Water Problem”.

Agricultural towers would make it possible to have hundreds of acres growing produce but stacked vertically instead of spreading outward, wasting land space already being wasted on burying Jamaicans as noted in my blog article entitled  “Jamaica running out of Burial Space - How to recycle the Dead as land for Agriculture and Housing”. 

The future of Jamaican Farming lies in Agricultural Towers, which are more efficient in using land.