AT A TIME when we are talking about the importance of agriculture and its role in saving and earning foreign exchange, we are allowing an excessive amount of our arable land to run wild. Why? Who is to blame?
This untenable situation can create issues for the island’s ecology, from erosion of the topsoil and difficulty in navigating some roadways, to facilitating the planting of more marijuana, thereby presenting law enforcement officials with additional challenges in searching for and destroying illegal plants and also having to contend with armed opponents.
We already have our challenges with farming. Crop and livestock thieves discourage many a farmer; there are problems with access to markets; and small landowners – particularly those in sugar cane cultivation – have virtually been driven out of business because of high production costs.
All this comes against a rather complex backdrop of feeding a growing domestic and international population. The Food and Agriculture Organization has indicated that with the global population expected to exceed nine billion in another 40 years, food demand will double.
Food security will clearly become critically important. So our options are clear: expand agricultural land or increase the productivity of existing crops.
The former is not a real option in our situation because we simply do not have the acreage. Our food production must of necessity be increased with less of two things, land and water.
Both food crop and livestock farmers must therefore improve their levels of productivity on existing arable land to meet local demand, including that of the tourist sector. Clearly, technology must help us achieve our results without leaving a negative imprint on the environment or scaring people away from other than organically grown foods.
 Agriculture affects many critical issues in this society, including conservation, particularly in the Scotland District; nutrition; rural development. These are powerful tools for change and equity.
 It is evident that we need to do a number of things in agriculture: be innovative, enhance the use of technology, place greater emphasis on research and development, address issues of higher productivity and resilience, as well as to do a better job of marketing what we grow for both locals and visitors.
 Unfortunately, we seem to be moving in the wrong direction, with a lot of talk as we hold on to the glory days of yesteryear. Those in agriculture, producers and policymakers, must ensure their policies do not handicap that sector that must feed all of the people. Most importantly, we cannot allow arable land to stand idle.
