How 196 Primary Schools Vegetable Gardens will boost Jamaica's Agricultural Future

“But on top of that, everything from that school garden, we want to know that it goes to the school to provide a breakfast programme. A breakfast programme, because 30 per cent of our children go to school without a breakfast”

Minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture, JC Hutchinson speaking about plans for School Gardens in 196 schools

Agriculture should be taught to student in all schools in Jamaica if we're to become independent from imported foods.

To this end, the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries is assisting 196 primary schools to set up vegetable gardens as reported in the article “Government to assist 196 primary schools with vegetable gardens”, published Tuesday, August 16, 2016, The Jamaica Observer.

Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries plans to install the following at these schools during the 2016/17 academic school year:

1.      Security fencing

2.      Fertilisers

3.      Seeds

4.      Seedlings

5.      Pesticides

6.      Water fixtures

The aim is to teach agriculture to students, possibly Primary Students, at an early age as pointed out by JC Hutchinson during a tour of the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) offices in Catherine Hall, St James, on Thursday August 11th 2016, quote: “This school garden (programme) is to train young children. We want to train them from an early age, so that they recognize that agriculture is something that you can make money from.”

This move is something I've long argued in my blog article entitled “Why Ministry of Education must support School Gardens as Sugar in Bag Juice linked to Lifestyle Diseases”, as Primary School children should not be eating Junk food such as cheese tricks and bag juice for lunch.

These foods contain added sugars and should be avoided, as they impair cognition and brain developement in growing children as pointed out in my MICO Wars blog article entitled “How to Spot Hidden Sugar and How to Avoid Eating Too Much”.

So how will this be funded?

Ministry of Agriculture and School Gardens - Feeding boosting Cognition and Agriculture

The school gardens will be supported by the RADA extension services and will get Fertilizer supplies from Newport Fersan Jamaica Limited as explained in my blog article entitled “How Fersan's School Gardens prepares Jamaican Children for Modern Agricultural Towers and Robots”.

It'll also help with the Breakfast feeding program at most school by allowing student to be able to grow their own food reduce the cost of feeding students. It also gets them involved in the process of making their own food.

Also, by switching to growing their own food, it would help to cut out fast foods and foods with added sugars that may be linked to ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder) in children as noted in my MICO Wars blog article entitled “How to Spot Hidden Sugar and How to Avoid Eating Too Much”. 

This will improve their health and boost academic performance and along with learning Spanish and French as noted in my MICO Wars blog article “Why French for Jamaicans at Primary Schools as Africa and Europe go Francophone” will make them more marketeable when they go on to High School and College.

Hopefully too, they’ll introduce the kids to Organic Farming methods as well as the use of Robotic automation in Farming and even the concept of Greenhouses and Agricultural Towers as described in “Why US$80 Billion Organic Farming Industry needs focus on Agricultural Towers, Robotics and School Farms”.

It’ll starts with the Primary Schools to secure our future Agricultural Independence.