A need for technology
published: Tuesday | January 31, 2006

A lettuce farmer spays his crop in Kellits, Clarendon. - IAN ALLEN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

MY FIRST CALL, therefore, is that we need a technologically-led agricultural industry. We can no longer rely on tradition and general beliefs. Our laboratories and experimental plots should be humming with work. Bright graduates should be in great demand, instead of having to migrate because of lack of jobs in Jamaica.

We are in a globalised world, and we must build on the natural advantages God gave us. Agriculture, like any serious business, will always have technical challenges and these must be addressed with science. We can no longer throw up our hands and hope for alternative crops. Jamaica produces over 100 commercial crops. We must make some of them work for our benefit.

Every agricultural country has been forced to make this investment, both in their people's brains and in their soils. Jamaica cannot be solely dependent on tourism and remittances and the bauxite reserves will not last out this century.