FOUR THOUSAND nine hundred (4,900) farmers in St. Thomas, Portland, St. Mary and St. Andrew, have now benefited from financial and technical assistance under the Ministry of Agriculture's Eastern Jamaica Agricultural Support Project (EJASP), while the applications of another 2,800 have been approved for implementation.
Leslie Grant, Project Manager for EJASP, which is funded by the European Union to the tune of $276 million, says this means that the overall target of 5,600 farmers has been exceeded. He also noted that of the $105 million earmarked to finance the implementation of sub-projects, $75 million had already been spent.
"To date, we have approved, some 79 sub-projects within the four designated parishes of St. Thomas, Portland, St. Mary and St. Andrew, 40 of which, have been fully implemented", he said.
EJASP is a four-year project, with the implementation and support of income-generating sub-projects, as its main focus. These sub-projects span over 12 areas, including farm road rehabilitation, small-scale irrigation, goat improvement production, agro-processing and coffee rehabilitation, as well as ginger and minisett yam production and marketing.
The Ministry of Agriculture spearheaded the establishment of EJASP in the year 2000, with the aim of improving the livelihoods of small-scale farmers in Eastern Jamaica, based on the fact that the four parishes in which it operates, have the highest concentration of small farmers in the island.
The EJASP sub-projects are being implemented through the Ministry's extension service provider, the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA), which assists in the screening of applicants, and the identification of key production areas, so as to ensure that the proposed activities are both technically and financially viable.
Project Manager, Leslie Grant stresses that farmers are not given cash handouts, but instead, are provided with inputs, such as planting material and fertiliser.
"We make available, a ceiling of $20,000 per farmer, in terms of planting material and a maximum of $40,000 per beneficiary, for irrigation and road rehabilitation. In addition, a maximum of $10 million is available to farm groups," he said.
Mr. Grant added that farmers were required to contribute 10 per cent of the value of the inputs received, to their groups.
