Gov’t adds $50 million to drought response as farm production falls 15%

The Government is injecting an additional $50 million into its drought intervention programme as dry conditions continue to affect farmers and contribute to an estimated 15 per cent decline in agricultural production. Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining, Floyd Green, announced the additional funding as he provided an update on measures being implemented to cushion the agricultural sector from the effects of the drought during a press briefing at the ministry’s head office on Tuesday. The new allocation will be targeted primarily at water storage and drip irrigation systems, as the ministry seeks to help farmers capture and use available water more efficiently.

“The rain is coming, but we want to ensure that the farmers are using the water efficiently,” Green said. The additional intervention follows a $149-million drought mitigation programme announced in May after forecasts indicated that the country was heading into an especially dry period. Under that programme, Green said $60.25 million was provided through Members of Parliament, another $15 million was allocated to the National Irrigation Commission (NIC) to support water trucking, while $60 million was provided to the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) for drought-response activities.

RADA has since trucked approximately 1,900 loads of water to farming communities across eight priority parishes, including St Thomas, Portland, St Mary, Westmoreland, Clarendon, St Catherine, St Elizabeth and Manchester. The agency has also distributed water tanks and micro-irrigation drip kits to farmers in affected communities. Meanwhile, Green said the NIC has trucked 2.82 million gallons of water free of cost to farmers, particularly within irrigation areas in St Elizabeth, Trelawny, St Ann and Manchester.

Pumping hours have also been extended, with some irrigation systems now operating for up to 16 hours daily. Despite those interventions, the minister said Jamaica’s heavy dependence on rainfall leaves agricultural production particularly exposed during prolonged dry periods. “The reality, however, is that 70 per cent of our farmers do depend on the rainfall for them to have productive activity.

So when there is a lack of rainfall, what often happens is that the farmers reduce the size of the plots under production so that they can better manage,” Green explained.