The Editor, Sir:

Your 'more food for thought' editorial in the Saturday's Gleaner (April 5), gave us much nutrients to digest. You eloquently forked and ploughed right into the heart of Jamaica's dilemma with the following remark:

"It was also noted in the article that the 1996 Agricultural Census of Jamaica stated that only some 273,000 hectares of the 449,493 hectares of farmland in Jamaica were being utilised, although by casual observation it would appear that an even higher proportion of potentially high-yield acreage is lying idle. In addition, some has been turned over to housing, notably in the areas of St Catherine along Highway 2000."

You went on to describe the reasons for this aversion to agriculture. Your points were quite solid! I would like to add that the media and the get-rich-quick mentally have also aided in this reluctance to 'poke' hands in our fertile soil and produce and eat from the sweat of our own hands and brows. This lackadaisical attitude in respect to self-sufficiency is also further abetted and promulgated by the foreign and local media, and by the copycat mentally of our local Jamaican folks. Even our more educated class got caught in this trap; probably a reason for so many allegations of corruption among the politicians.

There is just too much 'bling bling' mentally going on in Jamaica right now. Some of these Jamaicans should come to live in the USA and Canada, etc., and once they acquire a job, this ridiculous notion of the easy life would blow though the window like the breeze!

Far too many of our local Jamaicans believe the lie that is being fed to us every day through the media. A steady and uninterrupted stream of artificial flux and nonsense which seem to be taken as gospel, as truth. We believe everything we see portrayed on the North American TV channels, forgetting that all this is done to rob us of independent thought and even economic progress, at exploitation of the poor working class.

Truth concealed

While we are fed this stream of 'goody goody' easy life, every day, the truth is concealed from the Jamaican people. The media are not showing the hardships and burdensome family life and social deficiencies in family life in these North American jurisdictions. It fails to televise how hard the ordinary man and woman MUST work for all this façade of luxury and wealth and power to thrive. It fails to demonstrate how many workers MUST wake up as early as 3:30 a.m. each workday to be in the factory for the few to have this luxury. It neglects to depict the hardship that these workers MUST endure in paying for the so-called good life and the sleepless nights.

The local leaders of Jamaica need to educate our population on these matters. We MUST start at the primary school level and proceed onward. We cannot continue in the direction or the path in which we are being blown today, but we need leadership to get us moving.

I am, etc.,

JOSHUA SPENCER

joshuaspencer@rogers.com

Toronto, Canada

Via Go-Jamaica