Reality check of farming in Jamaica
APRIL IS commemorated as Farmers’ Month in Jamaica. It highlights contributions from a sector which has fuelled the development of every human community.
Also in April, the world paused to observe Earth Day on the 22nd. It’s not just another entry on the calendar, but is a stark reminder that the responsible exploitation of the earth’s resources is everybody’s business. This year’s theme was ‘Restore Our Earth’.
The trusted Old Farmer’s Almanac reminds, “nature, plants, and the land are integral to our own health, and so individual responsibility lies with each of us”.
While we tend to accept this on a surface level, those of us outside of the sector are satisfied with simply lining up a couple times per year to pour out platitudes or heap accolades on our ‘hard-working farmers’. Yet, in many ways, we neither live it nor mindfully contribute to a flourishing agricultural sector.
Let’s pause for some truthtelling about a constituency that consistently gets short shrift, with ‘big-ups’ failing to convert to a fulfilment of the national promise:
• Platitudes to practical;
• Sentiment to strategy;
• Sporadic to sustained.
While we’re not short of ‘experts’ pontificating on what the sector needs, the real producers are confined to a few dry and dreary early-morning farmers programmes or weekly features. If we really see farmers as valuable partners in production, we must prioritise their voice at the table – the boardroom table where finance, the economy and business developments are discussed and solutions implemented.
Partners deserve more than seasonal compliments or heavily publicised bailouts. They deserve real agency and respect.
ADJUSTMENTS INEVITABLE
In 2021, while globally we’re seeing rapid advances in technology, techniques, and consumer expectations, we are failing to keep pace. Factoring in real and present threats like climate change, we continue to fall behind by pursuing age-old methods with increasingly redundant mindsets. Real talk. Agriculture urgently needs a reset in mindsets, yielding new strategies and habits.
It’s t ough but necessary, requiring heavy investments in time, thought; yielding more relevant research to drive all future financial and human capital infections. Since it’s not a quick fix, we must begin now by reframing how we think about this industry and its primary producers.
Government needs to l ead rather than just administer. In a neoliberal, market-driven economy, this means shifting from direct ongoing interventions – like bailouts in times of droughts or gluts – towards a focus on creating a more farm-friendly financial ecosystem.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT AND ACTION
Tech-enabled, responsive systems to support independent producers without resources to hire a technical team. This would be like the first-responder function of t he traditional extension officers. This might include the following:
• A hotline to field questions and virtual hand-holding;
• SMS service with frequently asked questions;
• WhatsApp-style discussion platform for local opinion leaders;
• Customised producers’ insurance, as regular life insurance coverage does not satisfy the need to indemnify inventory. For a farmer, life and livelihood both revolve around the crop. How about customising ‘key man insurance’ to allow for business continuity in the case of any significant crop loss due to crime or forces of nature?
• Entrench support for consistency. We must institutionalise our support for producers who adhere to best practices for market-responsive crop management, rather than to doling out relief for ‘victims’ of their poor decisions, resulting in avoidable, adverse outcomes.
This is linked to the next point.
• Ongoing guidance in business decision-making.
Farmers, unfortunately, make cultivation decisions for the wrong reasons. The most common one is a rush to planting any crop that is currently scarce, hurtling from artificially high prices to dumping. Every business needs timely market intelligence and skills in risk management. This is a perennial weakness on the production side.
The smell of quick cash is never the best motive for an enterprise with many variables as fresh food production, especially without a manufacturing plugin or proper storage.
• Replace intuitive ‘ career experts and advisers’ without track record. Not every academic theory is directly transferable to agriculture. We don’t need another commission, enquiry or advisory board. The producer must have better access to boardrooms.
- Rebalance the power. Many of the official advisers and largescale commercial producers have competing interests which inform their counsel, often to the detriment of the broad base of active producers.
- Consumer protection enhancement. Producers are often led astray by suppliers of impute, simply to move inventory.
Inducements through significant price cuts or bundling with other merchandise must be interrogated by producers. It’s not always about price, but more about timeliness. This decisionmaking process can be actively countered by alternative counsel via the proposed hotline within the tech-enabled service menu for producers.
PARTNERS ALL
It’s also a golden opportunity for input suppliers to do the right thing to build long-term trust as a point of differentiation. There’s much to ‘chew on’, and it will involve funding and reallocation of some resources. However, in the long run, it is much costlier to ignore.
How can one per cent of our population remain viable in a dysfunctional system, let alone to feed the other 99 per cent, especially against the tide of cheap, imported competition?
‘Happy Farmers’ Month’ will start to mean something when all parties work together towards:
• Greater viability;
• Attracting new players;
• Securing our crop quality advantage to fetch higher prices per acre, given our small size.
We must get real with growing agriculture into an ‘A-lister’ – or it will be our poison. Congratulations to all fellow producers who are soldiering on in a challenging environment.
Martin Zifkovicst is a two-time national champion farmer for Jamaica. He is the managing director of Austrojam Ltd, St Elizabeth based Austrian-Jamaican company specialising in the farming and distribution of premium Jamaican produce. Send feedback to office@austrojam.com.