The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries has commenced preparations for the upcoming dry season.
In an interview with JIS News, Portfolio Minister, Hon. Floyd Green, said that following a recent meeting of the Ministry’s newly formed Drought Mitigation Committee, several measures are being implemented “to manage, in a proactive way, the execution of the drought management plan for the sector”.
“It is a more comprehensive approach and I am happy the committee has met, and we will keep meeting as we look at the realities of climate change,” he noted.
Minister Green said that the Meteorological Service of Jamaica (MET office) has projected that the country will be experiencing near-normal rainfall in some areas and moderately dry conditions in other parishes in 2021.
He said that some areas, including parts of St. Elizabeth, are experiencing drier-than-normal conditions, “so we have already started to allocate resources into some of those areas”.
He said that the response includes the procurement of small irrigation kits to “fool- proof our farmers against times of drought”.
Mr. Green said that plans are also under way to mitigate crop losses from flooding.
“We expect that we will get short periods of heavy rainfall, so we are looking at our drainage system and at rehabilitating our greenhouses,” he noted.
The drought mitigation committee consists of members of the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA), the National Irrigation Commission Limited (NIC), Water Resources Authority (WRA) and the Meteorological Service of Jamaica (MET Office).
Source: JIS
