By Leslie McLean, Gleaner WriterCLAREMONT, St. Ann:
TWENTY-FIVE thousand farmers in St. Ann are being targeted for registration by the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA).
The RADA Parish Manager for St. Ann, Pedro Worghs, told The Gleaner last week that the registration started in February and would run until Thursday March 31. The farmers are being registered under the Agri-Business Information System (ABIS).
"It is important that they register so as to ensure that the praedial larceny system functions properly because each farmer will receive a unique registration number," Mr. Worghs said. He pointed out that this number would be on the farmer's receipt book which would be used under the praedial larceny programme.
He added that farmers who did not register would not get a receipt book and would face difficulties if asked by the police to produce a receipt to prove where they got the product.
All five agricultural extension areas, Claremont, St. Ann's Bay, Brown's Town, Cave Valley and Alexandria have already started registration and there is a permanent registration centre at the RADA Parish Office in Claremont.
Each extension area has two teams of three persons conducting the exercise and three thousand eight hundred and fifty three farmers were registered up to Monday February 28..
