Wellington targets agricultural growth to strengthen local economy

Miranda Wellington, a teacher at Black River High School and the People’s National Party (PNP) prospective candidate for St Elizabeth South Western, says her top priority – if elected as member of parliament – is to breathe new life into the parish’s struggling agricultural sector and the local economy.

The 40-year-old educator is taking aim at two-term incumbent Floyd Green, the current minister of fisheries, agriculture and mining.

“When you live and work in a constituency, you want what is best for it more than anything else. I don’t feel like there is proper representation in terms of the farmers and the fishermen, who predominantly make up the economic base of the constituency,” she told The Sunday Gleaner on Friday.

Wellington, the daughter of a farmer, would see heavy focus on farmers, declaring that farming and teaching are the two most important professions in any country.

“Having taught for 17 years, I see the value of education, but what I also find to be true is that many of our children are no longer coming to school and that’s because the economic base of our constituency is no longer viable, which is farming,” she said.

Wellington said there is a direct relationship between farming in the constituency and families’ ability to provide for and sustain themselves.

She told The Sunday Gleaner that while prior generations were able to forge a living through agriculture, the current generation is barely surviving on farming, producing crops without guaranteed markets and often settling for meagre earnings.

Wellington also blamed the “heavy importation” of foreign produce for driving down local farmers’ motivation and profit margins.

“It’s causing them to turn away from farming. So if the base of your constituents are farmers and they are no longer able to farm, then what you find is that the other aspects of our constituency become retarded,” Wellington said.

She said a constituency development plan she has put together speaks to engaging “marketing industries”, making a direct link with farmers.

Further, she said establishing marketing cooperatives – business models where multiple producers or businesses collaborate on marketing efforts to reach a wider audience, share costs, and achieve common objectives – is another strategy she would employ to assist farmers.

She said currently, farmers are producing and waiting for a market to come to them while the wider society, unaware of available produce, starves for it.

Need for niche crops

She also stressed a need for niche crops which, she said, would make farmers in the constituency competitive and attractive to international markets.

She said the constituency is known for its seasoning crops, which include scallion, thyme and pimento, and believes that these can be further processed into various products.

Currently, Wellington said the constituency is not seeing what she calls the “tertiary level” of crops being produced.

“We’re seeing the primary level, where the crop is produced and sent away. Why not bring the production level into St Elizabeth, where farmers can turn tomatoes into tomato paste, where farmers can turn it into ketchup? We have to bring back the industrial aspect of farming into the parish,” she told The Sunday Gleaner.

As a first step, she said efficient cold storage, powered by solar technology, is needed within the constituency, lamenting an increase in spoilage.

“We have to look at a more scientific way of farming. Many of the farmers are producing crops that are not coming from quality seeds. I hear the minister speak about the kind of money – billions – that is invested in scientific research, but the farmers are not feeling the effect of that. There’s a disconnect between what is reality and what is it that they perceive to be doing,” she said, pointing the finger at the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA).

Critical of RADA

She was particularly critical of RADA, accusing the agency of gathering crop production data without using it to prevent gluts or guide strategic planning.

“If you know that within three months you have 50 acres of tomatoes coming in, why at the end of three months the farmers have a glut? That means that there is no marketing facility assisting the farmers. There are things that can be done to help farmers,” the teacher said.

Wellington said her personal connection to farming makes her especially invested in the sector’s revival.

“I want it to resonate that my leadership will be based on the fact that I’m a farmer’s daughter and this is important to me,” she said.

The educator also emphasised the need for stronger social infrastructure to support development, claiming that many of the communities in the constituency along Jamaica’s south coast have been “neglected”.

Arguing that strong communities will yield a strong constituency, she that without spaces like community centres that could serve as hubs for engagement, training, and resilience building this will not happen.

kimone.francis@gleanerjm.com