{"id":1872,"date":"2023-12-04T13:49:54","date_gmt":"2023-12-04T13:49:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/japjm.com\/?page_id=1872"},"modified":"2024-09-11T16:33:00","modified_gmt":"2024-09-11T16:33:00","slug":"min-agriculture","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/japjm.com\/index.php\/min-agriculture\/","title":{"rendered":"MIN &#8211; Agriculture"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-page\" data-elementor-id=\"1872\" class=\"elementor elementor-1872\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-8fa5bc4 e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"8fa5bc4\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-core-v316-plus=\"true\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-4e626f2 elementor-widget elementor-widget-heading\" data-id=\"4e626f2\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"heading.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t<style>\/*! elementor - v3.20.0 - 10-04-2024 *\/\n.elementor-heading-title{padding:0;margin:0;line-height:1}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title[class*=elementor-size-]>a{color:inherit;font-size:inherit;line-height:inherit}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-small{font-size:15px}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-medium{font-size:19px}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-large{font-size:29px}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-xl{font-size:39px}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-xxl{font-size:59px}<\/style><h2 class=\"elementor-heading-title elementor-size-default\">AGRICULTURE<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-96a4dd2 elementor-widget__width-initial elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"96a4dd2\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t<style>\/*! elementor - v3.20.0 - 10-04-2024 *\/\n.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:#69727d;color:#fff}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap{color:#69727d;border:3px solid;background-color:transparent}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap{margin-top:8px}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap-letter{width:1em;height:1em}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap{float:left;text-align:center;line-height:1;font-size:50px}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap-letter{display:inline-block}<\/style>\t\t\t\t<p>It is said that it takes an acre of land to feed a person for one year.&nbsp;Jamaica needs to establish its food security as a matter of urgency. One of our first act will be the zoning of agricultural lands which&nbsp;cannot be used for any purpose which will impact on the use of these&nbsp;lands for agricultural purpose in the future. Too many of our fertile&nbsp;agricultural lands are being used for housing, roads, commercial and&nbsp;industrial purposes. The importance of securing our fertile agricultural&nbsp;lands cannot be over emphasised as while &nbsp;we can import food stuff,&nbsp;in cases of supply shortage the suppliers will cut off export or&nbsp;increase the price to levels which are unaffordable as was&nbsp; seen in the case of tomato when the crop in Florida &nbsp;failed. Protection&nbsp;will be given to our farmers to prevent dumping of products in our&nbsp;markets as when our farmers are forced out of business the price of&nbsp;these &#8216;cheap products&#8217; will rise sharply as happened the case of milk&nbsp;powder. &nbsp;<br>Steps will also be taken with a view to eliminate praedial larceny.&nbsp;Praedial larceny &nbsp;results in the&nbsp; loss of billions of dollars each year to our farmers with some suffering losses amounting to millions of&nbsp;dollars. This activity has led to many of our&nbsp;farmers scaling back their operation or going out of business&nbsp;completely. Persons who farm for personal use have also been forced&nbsp;to abandon their effort. These are great losses to the country and&nbsp;affect our employment numbers, balance of trade and Gross&nbsp;Domestic Product (GDP). One of the role of municipal police will be to&nbsp;investigate and help curtail praedial larceny. Neighbourhood watch&nbsp;programmes will also help to prevent this crime. Penalties will be&nbsp;gereatly increased to reflect the severity of the crime and to serve as a&nbsp;deterrent. With the new penalties (civil and criminal), new approach to&nbsp;policing and active neighbourhood watch, we expect that the extent of&nbsp;praedial larceny will be greatly reduced.&nbsp;Apart from the losses suffered by farmers, there is also the great&nbsp;threat to the public health when unfit products such as sprayed&nbsp;vegetables or medicated animals are stolen and sold to consumers. This poses a&nbsp;great risk to the health of members of the public especially pregnant and lactating mothers and those persons whose immune system are&nbsp;weakened by existing illnesses. For example, the risk of having a&nbsp;baby with physical defects, mental retardation as well as spontaneous&nbsp;abortion are greatly increased if these unfit products are consumed.&nbsp;Similarly the threat of illnesses, including cancer, caused by these chemicals, or&nbsp;worsening of existing condition is very strong. The elimination of&nbsp;praedial larceny will be a top priority of a JAP government.&nbsp;RADA will be expanded to work closer with the farmers to provide&nbsp;technical services and prevent glut of products on the market. There&nbsp;will also be expansion of certain crops for both the local and export&nbsp;market for which we have a comparative advantage including organic&nbsp;produce. A comprehensive study will be done on the need for&nbsp;irrigation or any study already done will be reviewed with the intent to&nbsp;provide irrigation for these areas. Effort will be continued to provide&nbsp;land titles for farmers.&nbsp;An extensive educational program will be launched to educate&nbsp;farmers and the public in general on the use of pesticides and&nbsp;weedicides so as to prevent and stop their misuse and pollution of&nbsp;the environment. Many farmers are experimenting with the use of&nbsp;chemicals for purposes that they are not intended. Assistance to small&nbsp;farmers to acquire new technologies, as well as access to affordable&nbsp;pest and disease controls will be made available. Soil management&nbsp;must also be an important part of improving agriculture in order to&nbsp;allow the soil to remain fertile so farmers can get the best yield&nbsp;possible.&nbsp;More factories need to be established so that value added product&nbsp; can be produced and exported instead of raw produce. Many crops such as&nbsp;mangoes which go to waste each year, can be processed into juice&nbsp;and sold. The improvement and maintenance of farm roads &nbsp;will be&nbsp;tackled so as to enable the easy transportation of produce from the&nbsp;farm gate. Special attention will be given to improving the conditions&nbsp;under which our market vendors who distribute and sell us food stuff&nbsp;have to operate. Many of the hardships that these persons face on a&nbsp;weekly basis can be alleviated. Markets will be improved to bring them&nbsp;up to an acceptable standard for both the vendors and buyers.&nbsp;A JAP government will work to make it easier for persons to access&nbsp;land for farming and obtain loans at affordable rate as well as provide&nbsp;support for our &nbsp;young and small farmers. &nbsp;With its overall thrust to&nbsp;maintain the environment in a healthy state, the prospect and outlook&nbsp;for our farmers will improve.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AGRICULTURE It is said that it takes an acre of land to feed a person for one year.&nbsp;Jamaica needs to establish its food security as a matter of urgency. One of our first act will be the zoning of agricultural lands which&nbsp;cannot be used for any purpose which will impact on the use of these&nbsp;lands &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/japjm.com\/index.php\/min-agriculture\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">MIN &#8211; Agriculture<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"no-sidebar","site-content-layout":"page-builder","ast-site-content-layout":"full-width-container","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"disabled","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"disabled","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1872","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/japjm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/japjm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/japjm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/japjm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/japjm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1872"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/japjm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3459,"href":"https:\/\/japjm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1872\/revisions\/3459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/japjm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}