Engage communities

It is welcome news that the Wakefield Plantation in St. John, which was owned by CLICO, will be put back into production.

During the debate on the Appropriation Bill last month, it was announced by Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Indar Weir that those acres of arable land, which boast of being some of the most fertile in this country, was to be put back into use. At the same time, he said government was seeking to ramp up agricultural production, especially in light of the spread of the coronavirus and the potential of the pandemic to affect food imports.

Reflecting on the plan for the Wakefield property, Third Vice President of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) and spokesperson on agriculture, Andre Worrell, lauded the move. He went on to say that the DLP supports the Minister in the efforts to boost agricultural production in general, and is especially pleased about the use of the St. John lands, which he said have been out of production for far too long.

“Since last year the Democratic Labour Party had asked the Minister of Agriculture, when there was talk about selling those lands, to bring those lands back into production. We are therefore happy to hear that the Minister is going to move on that. But we fear that if we are talking about any major food crisis as a result of COVID-19, we might already be behind the eight ball in terms of agricultural production,” he stated.

His comments came as he said the hope is that the Ministry will not rely only on state entities or land lease programmes open to bona fide farmers to cultivate such lands, but give consideration to allowing communities in the area to participate as well. In fact, Worrell says this approach should be taken in respect of all agricultural lands managed by the State.

“Our focus should be on lands which are close to communities. In terms of Wakefield, there are communities like Venture, Sherbourne, Wakefield, Four Roads, Cherry Grove and Pool where people may be interested in working some of these lands. Plough the lands for them and let them work them up, especially at this time when we need to shore up our food security now that we have this threat from COVID-19. I think we would get more done if we have it as a community project, where communities are given access to the land and allowed to plant up food and share the crops among themselves and where there is excess, it can be sold. So it would be a
win-win situation,” he said.

He stated even with the shutdown that has been instituted, such would still be possible as farms have been given between 5 a.m. and 6 p.m. to operate. He added that certainly steps can be taken to limit the number of persons who will be operating in the field, so as to employ the physical distancing that is required at this time.

With that in mind, Worrell said the party also supported the efforts being made to ramp up production, especially in terms of protein. Noting that it may be sometime before things get back to normal, he said there is the opportunity to allow more people to be able to feed themselves, encouraging backyard gardening and poultry production at home.

“This is the opportunity for us to put chicken runs in the hands of more people, start them off with six to 20 chickens with adequate feed to carry them for six weeks and they would be able to their your household over a period of time,” he said.