John Myers Jr., Agriculture Coordinator
Roger Clarke (second left), Minister of Agriculture and Land, greets two-year-old Jala Robinson, daughter of Oral Robinson (right), winner of the Pure Breed Supreme Champion Junior Boer, and the Supreme Goat Exhibitor at the 54th Annual Denbigh Agricultural and Industrial Show held in Clarendon. Also in photograph are Neletha Butterfield (left), Minister of Environment for Bermuda, and Senator Norman Grant, president of the Jamaica Agricultural Society. - Nathaniel Stewart/Freelance Photographer
Minister of Agriculture and Land, Roger Clarke, has dismissed as "foolishness," concerns raised by Opposition Senator Anthony Johnson about ackee exports to the United States.
Sen. Johnson, the Opposition Spokesman on Agriculture, said on the weekend that the country could lose millions of dollars in exports if Government did not move speedily to get back into the U.S. market.
Ackee exports from the island were banned from the U.S. market after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found unusually high levels of hypoglycin, a toxin which exists naturally in ackee, in 31 cases of 19-ounce cans in December 2005.
Ackee exports are believed to be worth about US$50 million to the Jamaican economy, the second largest agricultural export. The U.S. market accounts for 60 per cent of ackee exports or US$10 million.
Lose market
Sen. Johnson argued that the country could lose up to US$50 per case if it failed to get back into the U.S. market as one case of ackee fetched up to US$135 on the U.S. market while it only sold for US$85 in Canada.
"There is a large ackee crop not being taken off right now, and the processors are not buying all the ackees because they can't export to the United States," he lamented. "An emergency situation needs to be sorted out with the United States of America in an attempt to resolve that matter."
However, while addressing the 54th staging of the Denbigh Agricultural and Industrial Show in May Pen, Clarendon, Minister Clarke said ackee production was improving, and exports to the United States should be resumed in September.
"We have had some difficulties this year because of the high levels of hypoglycin that were discovered in some of the export ackee (but) we are working with the FDA and we believe that by the middle of September we should be able to resume shipments of ackee back into the United States of America," Minister Clarke said.
