The story behind the Portmore farmers’ market dispute
MAYOR OF Portmore Leon Thomas has expressed concern that an unauthorised farmers’ market initiative spearheaded by the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) caretaker for South East St Catherine, Robert ‘Big Rob’ Miller, in Portmore on April 22 might have foiled the genuine effort on Saturday, April 25, by the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) to ease the food shortage caused by a government-imposed lockdown of St Catherine.
Portmore has emerged as the epicentre of COVID-19 in Jamaica. The spread has been linked to the Alorica call centre in the municipality.
Miller, who is an adviser to J.C. Hutchinson, the minister without portfolio in the agriculture ministry, promoted a number of food box and basket packages for sale at $1,200 through a flyer with a RADA logo at a number of communities in the parish a day before a special task force met to determine the locations and protocols for hosting the markets. The 20-pound boxes offered a mix of lettuce, cabbage, pak choi, tomatoes, yellow squash, zucchini, and a choice of three fruits from pineapple, papaya, cantaloupe, honey dew, and mangoes (Julie and East Indian).
MISLEADING ADVERTISING?
The flyer may have led the public, including President of the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS) Lenworth Fulton to believe that it was part of the Government’s effort to offload surplus produce from farmers, and so he bought five packages.
Fulton told The Gleaner that when he turned up about midday two Wednesdays ago at the Bridgeport cricket field, “people were crawling all over each other”, with no adherence to social distancing. However, after he appealed to them, some order was restored.
Thomas said he was taken aback when contacted by residents of Westchester, another Portmore community, who were appalled at the crowd, which had converged on their area in light of concerns about the coronavirus spread.
Since it was not a designated market day and the municipality had not endorsed the initiative, Mayor Thomas said he turned up at the Independence City location, where he advised Miller that he was operating in breach of the law laid down by the Government as well as without the permission or knowledge of the Portmore Municipality.
The police assisted in ensuring that the market was closed, but concerns have been raised about whether the RADA logo was fraudulently used on the flyer that was copied from an internal advertisement to benefit staff members.
At a stakeholders meeting convened the day after the stand-off with Miller, at which members of the chamber of commerce, civil society, business operators, councillors from both political parties, members of Parliament, the police, RADA, and the JAS were represented, they agreed on five locations to stage the markets. Thomas explained that the venues were selected for their open spaces that would allow them to accommodate a wide range of crops, as well as the expected large turnout by the public.
The locations agreed on were the Greater Portmore football field, the Scouts Association Centre at the Edgewater roundabout, the Portmore Climate Change Park, Southborough Primary School in Independence City, and the Hamilton Gardens cricket field. The markets were to run from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. However, some of the truckers failed to show up on the designated day, sparking outrage as shoppers waited in vain.
“We out here from 6 a.m. because someone call and tell me the farmers’ truck coming this morning. Me hear say it would come 8 a.m., but then we out here until the councillor come and say 9 a.m., and we still out here with whole heap of people, and all now, after 12 p.m., nothing!” a resident, who declined to provide her name, complained two Saturdays ago.
“The trucks did not turn up, and Michael Price, acting chief technical director in the agriculture ministry, is insisting that they did. But if the trucks turned up, people would see them. So that is what cause the mayhem in the municipality,” Thomas declared.