Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Hon. Floyd Green (right), examines egg production data, along with President of the Jamaica Egg Farmers Association, Roy Baker (centre), and Acting Chief Technical Director in the Ministry, Michael Pryce.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries will be embarking upon a media campaign to increase the consumption of eggs among Jamaicans.
Making the call for the campaign, Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Hon. Floyd Green, emphasized the importance of eggs as a low-cost protein consisting of essential vitamins and wants as much as three eggs to be consumed by each Jamaican.
“I want this campaign to be in collaboration with the Jamaica Egg Farmers Association and not a one-man show. It is in all our benefits to drive the increased consumption of eggs,” Minister Green said.
He was addressing senior members of the Jamaica Egg Farmers Association, at the Ministry in Kingston, on December 3.
Eggs are critical to keeping the immune system healthy; they also play a role in lowering the risk of heart disease and helps in the maintenance and repair of the body’s tissues.
Meanwhile, preliminary data from the Ministry’s Agricultural Marketing Information Division indicates that this year has been a record year for egg production with 208 million eggs produced in comparison to the same period within the last nine years.
The Minister attributes this to the work done under the Agriculture Excess-Buyback Programme during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March.
During the programme more than 1.2 million kilogrammes of food was moved from farmers to consumers as a measure to bolster the country’s food security and to stave-off fallout in the agriculture sector as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The fact that we were able to intervene and to provide support to your industry and to provide a subsidy to make it easier for people to go out and get the eggs through established mobile markets, really helped to drive consumption,” he said.
The Minister lauded the Jamaica Egg Farmers Association for establishing a health and life insurance scheme for members and a contingency fund, which he described as an “excellent move” to support members in times of difficulty.
For his part, President of the association, Roy Baker expressed gratitude to the Ministry for its commitment and ongoing support to the association over the years.
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