THE context in which the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS) hosted its Kingston and St Andrew Agrofest on Saturday could not have been lost on anyone, including Central Kingston member of parliament and farmer, Ronald Thwaites, who said global food and energy conditions had tremendous implications for local farmers.

Beatrice Anderson examines this huge yam on display at the Jamaica Agricultural Society's Agrofest at Jamaica College grounds in St Andrew on Saturday. Anderson said she had seen yams of a similar size on her travels to Nigeria, but didn't think she would see one in Jamaica. (Photo: Joseph Wellington)

"I don't know if we in Jamaica fully understand the energy and food crisis," Thwaites told exhibitors and participants at the agricultural show at Jamaica College grounds in St Andrew.

Thwaites said rising fuel costs would affect farmers, and it was time for the nation to look seriously at alternatives to oil.

"The price of oil is going to make motorised agricultural transport and other inputs inhibitive," Thwaites said. He said at his own farm in St Andrew, he had recently decided to retain three donkeys instead of replacing them with a machine, because of the price of fuel.

Referring to the government's recent 'Grow what we eat and eat what we grow campaign', which is hoped to reduce the island's import bill in the wake of rising food costs, Thwaites said the JAS had been promoting that concept for ages.

"Long before it was fashionable to champion Michael Manley's vision that we should grow what we want to eat, you did it," Thwaites said.

For his part, JAS president Norman Grant called on the National Water Commission (NWC) to restore water to some rural St Andrew farming communities that have been doing without the commodity for five years.
"What we're saying is, use that increase to see to it that our rural people get water so that we, too, can have a normal life," Grant said, referring to the NWC's recent 28 per cent rate hike.

Thwaites, too, called on banks and lending agencies to invest confidence in farmers by giving them the "pride of place" necessary for agriculture to drive the economy.