Business View Caribbean
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nering with the farming community. That is, those per-
sons and companies that are engaged in other activi-
ties – industry, distribution, tourism – will partner by
providing capital to the farmers who will then, under
contract, produce their needs that they can market;
and, at the same time, satisfying the needs of the
farmer, so that the farmers can produce without the
difficulties that are associated with limited capital, un-
reasonable interest rates, and inconsistency of sales
because they have to market their own product. If
those provisions could be made through the marriage
of the holders of capital and the farmers, then that is
a marriage that could see the expansion of agriculture
in Jamaica. That is the cornerstone of our strategy – to
make those with capital appreciate the important role
that agriculture plays, and the kinds of profits that can
flow from that partnership.
“We also focus on agro-industry, where we move from
primary production into secondary, so we use what we
produce to add value; where the manufacturing com-
munity and the agro-processors can use the produce
from our farms to create the kind of attractive goods
that can be marketed overseas and earn foreign ex-
change. That is the direction we have to go.
“For example, we have traditionally been accustomed
to growing cane; we process the cane and create sug-
ar. And then, we ship it, in bulk, to the United Kingdom.
They take it and refine it into refined sugar and sell that
sugar back to us. Well, the time has come for us to do
the refining, ourselves, rather than just taking the raw
sugar and shipping it overseas for somebody else to
process. The time has come for us to look at convert-
ing that raw material into a finished good that can be
packaged and marketed overseas and domestically.”
