Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Mining, Hon. Floyd Green (left) and Portland Eastern Member of Parliament, Ann-Marie Vaz, observe flood damage from heavy rainfall in sections of the constituency during a tour on January 3.
January 7 (JIS):
Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Mining, Hon. Floyd Green, has assured farmers in Eastern Portland that efforts will be made to rehabilitate more farm roads in the area, in the upcoming 2024/2025 financial year.
The Minister made the commitment, following a tour of several farms in the parish on January 3, where he assessed the impact of recent heavy rainfall on mostly banana, plantain, and coffee farmers in the Rio Grande Valley.
“We visited some farm roads (and) some are in really difficult condition…really bad condition and they have gotten worse with the rain,” the Mr. Green said.
He pointed out that the Ministry’s Farm Road Programme has been impactful and some of the roads in the area had already benefited from the initiative, such as the Bellevue farm road.
“This area is very well known for banana, very well known for coffee and again, this road was in an atrocious condition. And as such, we work with the Members of Parliament, we work with the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) to choose the roads that we know will have the most impact,” Mr. Green explained.
“Based on our budget, we have to do them in phases. So, I say to the residents in this area, this is just phase one. We’re here to look at how we can craft phase two for the next financial year,” he added.
The government originally allocated $600 million towards the rehabilitation of farm roads for the 2023/24 fiscal year, which was used to repair 30 farm roads across the country.
An additional $200 million was allocated to the programme and the Ministry is now in the procurement process for another 17 roads to be rehabilitated.
“We will continue to ask the Minister of Finance to give us some additional support, so we can pass that $1 billion mark (and) so we can help more communities like this fulfil their true potential,” Minister Green said.
