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Home | Agriculture Ministry Allocates $700 Million to Help Farmers Recover
Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining, Hon. Floyd Green makes a statement in the House of Representatives on Tuesday (July 16).
July 17 (JIS):
The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining has allocated $700 million as an immediate response to help farmers recover from the passage of Hurricane Beryl, which impacted the island on July 3.
Portfolio Minister, Hon. Floyd Green, said this initial tranche of support will be used to purchase critical items urgently needed to help farmers rebuild their operations and do infrastructure repairs.
He made the announcement while making a statement in the House of Representatives on July 16.
The Minister added that the funds will be disbursed through the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA), Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS), Agro Investment Corporation (AIC) and Members of Parliament.
“The allocation includes $210 million, which will focus on crop recovery. We will allocate $90 million to our vegetable lines, $40 million towards our banana and plantain farmers and $80 million towards other crops, especially yam and our coffee farmers,” Mr. Green said.
“In relation to livestock… we are allocating $60 million to help them [our small poultry farmers] rebuild their enterprise. We are not only allocating in relation to the provision of livestock; a number of farmers lost their infrastructure. As such, we are allocating $26 million towards the rebuilding of livestock infrastructure,” he added.
Mr. Green said an initial sum of $29 million will be allocated to the fisheries sector, $30 million will be allocated for fertiliser support, $55 million for infrastructure support, $20 million for irrigation, $50 million for land preparation and clearance, and $70 million for farm road rehabilitation.
He noted that $150 million will be allocated through Members of Parliament, which will be prorated based on the level of damage in the constituency.
“The allocations will have to be utilised over the next four weeks and will go through a verification process to ensure that the persons have, in fact, suffered damage through Hurricane Beryl,” he said.
He pointed out that distribution will commence for seeds across various vegetable lines on Thursday (July 18).
“Because we knew that some form of weather disaster would befall us this season, we started the procurement process early and have already procured $65 million in seeds across various vegetable lines,” the Minister said.
He noted, as well, that a distribution plan will commence next week for fertiliser donated by the Government of Morocco.
“We had also earmarked some of our fertiliser that had been donated from the Government of Morocco for disaster recovery and will put in place a distribution plan that will commence next week. We have also procured $55 million in greenhouse material that has already being procured, and we expect them to arrive in the island in another four weeks,” Mr. Green said.
The damage to the sector is estimated at $4.73 billion.
