This is an open letter to the minister of agriculture, Christopher Tufton. The mango season is approaching and, unless something is done radically and quickly, thousands of common mangoes are going to go to waste and with them all the vitamins and nutrients they contain.

I am urging you, sir, please, try to put in place some system whereby common mangoes, which will soon be falling off trees all across the island, can be collected and trucked to Kingston and sold at peppercorn prices, thereby making them available to the children of the inner-city communities of Kingston.

It's mango season - and the well-known tradition in Jamaica is "wash yuh pot, tun it down, mango time".

- Howard Hamilton, QC

Kingston

It appears to me that the Government still has a mindset to lease out most of the sugar-cane lands for sugar-cane farming. It is over 400 years since sugar cane has been farmed in Jamaica and it hasn't put Jamaica anywhere.

Fact is, Jamaican young people do not like to work in sugar-cane fields.

I am pretty sure there are hundreds of acres of land that could be used for rice farming bringing in a lot more money and food into the country more than leasing out the land for sugar-cane farming for a few dollars.

Various governments have failed the people because they are not making the right decisions to put Jamaica on track with other developed countries , although it has so many resources to take care of its less than three million people. Jamaica has some of the best beaches in the world, rivers and solar energy that can easily be tapped. What more can one ask for?

- Steve L. Allen

lyndonallen@rogers.com

Toronto, Canada

I would like to ask where is the sense in all the protests and disruptions about the Budget. For years, we have borrowed and begged to keep our economy afloat. The only time in recent memory I can recall the bare facts being laid out for the people was the preview to this Budget. Why are we as a people, unwilling to face the problem head-on than keep delaying it?

As a public servant, it is hard on my pocket to keep going, but the bottom line is, I am prepared to do my part; why are others unwilling?

No budget is ever accepted by the people, but when the facts are laid out, I must ask why is it that some feel that we must keep going how we used to or further delay the inevitable?

If a man has time protest, I doubt he has time to work. So why not use the same protest time to be inventive and creative to take us out of the slump?

- Phillip Gallas

localizerjm@yahoo.com

Pitfour, Montego Bay

St James