Editorial | Why is there no agri debate in the campaign?

When Jamaican commentators wish to highlight the country’s missed economic opportunities, they often draw comparisons with Singapore, the Southeast Asia city state that is about the same size as the parish of St Thomas, with a population of 5.7 million and gross domestic product (GDP) 25 times Jamaica’s. At the start of the 1960s, Jamaica, economically, was ahead of Singapore.

There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, of Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s first prime minister and architect of its economic transformation, coming to Jamaica and salivating over what he might achieve if he had a country the size of Jamaica to work with.

Among the acknowledged reasons for Singapore’s success is that they formulate policies – such as the one articulated for agriculture, a sector that, thus far, has featured little in Jamaica’s election campaign – and diligently work at them. Yet, in the context of the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, and growing concerns over global food security, agriculture deserves to be high on this country’s political-economic agenda.

Even before the crisis, the Singaporeans had placed it on theirs. A year and a half ago, Singapore’s government launched its “30 by 30” programme, an ambitious plan to, by 2030, increase to 30 per cent the amount of the country’s nutritional needs that is domestically produced. They now produce 10 per cent. In 2019, Singapore’s import bill for foods and live animals was S$11.5 billion, or around US$8.4 billion at the current exchange rate.

With only one per cent of Singapore’s 719.2 square kilometres now available for agriculture, the domestic-production initiative will include an expansion of high-tech urban farming. It is part of a three-pronged strategy, spearheaded by the new Singapore Food Agency, to ensure the country’s long-term food security. There may be opportunities here for Jamaica to explore while, at the same time, providing support for the resuscitation, and growth, of our farm sector.

Jamaica, in terms of producing the food it consumes, is better than Singapore but isn’t in great shape. We produce less than half of our requirements.

FOOD-IMPORT BILL

Further, last year Jamaica’s food-import bill, at US$1.025 billion, was not only an increase of 14 per cent over the previous year, but was 16 per cent of total imports. In Singapore, food accounted for three per cent.

Additionally, the cost of imported food by Jamaica was equivalent to nearly two-thirds of what it earned from visible exports, about 28 per cent of the gross earnings from tourism and 45 per cent of remittances. The food, and broader import bill, will decline this year because of the shock from the pandemic, including the collapse of tourism. Food imports, however, are likely start to rise again as the pandemic ebbs, or passes, and the economy recovers.

There is, though, even now, a potential upside for Jamaica’s agriculture. Experts estimate that between a fifth and a quarter of our food imports could be substituted with domestic crops, which, conceivably, could put between US$200 million and US$250 million in the island’s economy.

Unlike Singapore, which has to scrounge for land on which to farm, that, for Jamaica, wouldn’t be an immediate problem. For while only 19.5 per cent of the island’s arable land is available for agriculture, with the decline of the sugar industry in recent decades, vast tracts of it remain unutilised.

There are, however, grave dangers. Up to two generations ago, the bulk of the 35 per cent of Jamaica’s 10.99 square kilometres that was deemed good for agriculture was still open for farming. Unfortunately, much of those lands have been put under real estate. More are under threat, such as at Bernard Lodge, on the St Catherine plain, which the Government’s National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) concedes is the island’s “most fertile ... A1 soil”. Yet, with NEPA’s acquiescence, more than 1,000 acres (per 400 hectares) of Bernard Lodge are earmarked for a new city of 17,000 homes.

Urban-inner-city Renewal

This newspaper believes that real estate development should focus on urban-inner-city renewal and on marginal lands, of which there is sufficient on which to build new cities – if they are needed. Agricultural-quality land should be left for just that –agriculture. The coronavirus pandemic, and the threat it has posed to global supply chains, has re-emphasised the logic of this idea, similar to what the spiral in cereal and grain prices a dozen years ago did for the notion of food security. Indeed, COVID-19 reanimated Singapore’s “30 by 30” plan.

For Jamaica, expanding agriculture, which accounts for seven per cent of GDP, would create jobs at a time of uncertainty in other sectors. It would also save, and possibly earn, foreign exchange from exports.

And at a time when agricultural yields are under threat from global warming, the imperative of growing more is obvious. Jamaica, in this regard, might investigate the prospects for partnership with Singapore. Singapore’s “30 by 30” programme has two other legs. Already, the city state imports food from 170 countries. It wants to diversify even more. Additionally, it is encouraging its firms to expand, and grow, abroad, for export to Singapore. These are initiatives that Jamaica might explore. In any event, the matter of a modern, post-sugar agricultural sector should command the attention of the parties in this campaign.