As I read the article a couple of things struck me .
Jamaica has always farmed — sugar and bananas, mostly — and imports have been part of the mix since at least the colonial era because grains are hard to grow in the region. But the balance tipped more significantly toward foreign food in the 1990s. From 1991 to 2001, Jamaica’s total food and beverage imports increased by two-and-a-half times, to $503 million before doubling after that.
Much of the initial growth coincided with agriculture surpluses around the world and changing tastes, as more Jamaicans favored meat and processed food. Many of the country’s 200,000 farmers cut production in the ’90s and early 2000s because they found it hard to compete.
Filed under: Agriculture |
Warren's Blog 
This goes back from the 40s and 60s when the bauxite company came and outed 400000 farmers from the country town and overseas. We are simply reaping what we have sown.
Vision-less leaders and sheep as followers have placed Jamaica where she is today.
Jay, don’t fool yourselves, Jamaica’s problems can be solved but those at the helm do not know how to do so. Jay, in the 21st a blackberry is an important devise which farmers need. We need investments in agro-technology, creating tariffs or banning imported products will not help us. Japan’s agricultural sector is protected and it is still inefficient, we need to export quality products which the world needs at a competitive price.
Gave that article a read. Same old bullshit. We can feed everyone cheaply in Jamaica, its just that the fundamental problem with Jamaican political economy – the refusal of the political class to aid our local capitalists by forming corporations and engaging in public/private co-operations.
Lets stop this small farmer crap. Look at all the wasteland you see people building houses on whenever you drive through town or Portmore. Get government to form a a public/private corporation and row rice on that land! A lot of our problems also come from a lack of capital. We have a surplus of onions, yet we have to import 1 billion dollars to our hotels because we lack the machinery enough to perform the reverse osmosis. That’s just retarded.
When are we going to get our heads out our asses, and do the damn thing right?
SatanForce, the people who are heading Jamaica do not believe in capitalism. In addition most of our farmers are old and they occupy small lots, this is not the time to save dying industries, this is the time to make agriculture innovative. This is a letter that Iwrote. Published today in observer
MIND YOUR MANNERS UNIONS
Businessess exist to maximise profits. Therefore, in order to achieve greater levels of efficiency, private enterprises will seek to retool and invest in cost-saving initiatives. However, Jamaicans do not seem to understand this concept because of their welfare mentality.
Nothing is wrong with defending the rights of workers, but unions should understand that employers have the right to sack workers who are not efficient; and when these employees are defended, the wrong message is sent to investors. Some years ago, an employee was fired for sleeping on the job. Instead of berating the employee, his colleagues decided to strike. An asinine action like this would not have been tolerated in a productive country.
The PanCaribbean Sugar Company’s aim is to make profits and not to lose important equipment. If the security guards who were entrusted to protect these euipment were derelict in their duties, then there must be consequences. Furthermore, it is not financially prudent for the company to maintain these workers and pay interim personnel. The company must be allowed to do its restructuring.
Jamaica Private Power Company also wants to restructure its operations, but unions don’t seem to understand this. The management of the firm provided union leaders with an opportunity to recommend suitable cost-saving alternatives, and the unions did not respond. We cannot expect the company to continue with its inefficient operations; it is not a charity.
Though we live in the 21st century, unions are still anachronistic. For example, for many, being a security guard is not a permanent job, it is something people do until a better job comes along. Even though the law recognises security guards as employees and not contractors, private firms do not share this view, and based on the nature of the industry we cannot blame them. If security guards were to receive special benefits like permanent workers, then massive lay-offs would become a possibility, because such a decision is not financially feasible.
Research conducted by Gallup has shown that workers are more productive when they feel respected. It is respect and not a raft of benefits which makes workers productive. In addition, trade unions do not understand the free market, but it is unlikely that anything will be done to curb their power since both parties are affiliated to unions.
Populism will trump economics again, and in the short term the people will feel better, but in the long term Jamaica will be poorer. Jamaica needs a leader, like Margaret Thatcher, who is not afraid to tackle unions or other populist elements in the society. It is also quite ironic that the people who will reject conservative leaders will later bash politicians for promoting populism and the poor for being lazy. Jamaicans should make up their minds, they can accept capitalism and be prosperous or they can continue to admire utopic socialism and achieve failure.
Lipton Matthews
lo_matthews@yahoo.com
“It is respect and not a raft of benefits which makes workers productive”. It is respect for workers that allows one to pay them a liveable wage. When workers needs are just as important as the organization loyalty beckons. That is the reality of the successful workplace.
As with all the challenges that we face as a Country, govt policies are incongruous with desired objectives. We talk about feeding ourselves yet we still have arable land that could support more efficient farming practices been used to develop concrete structures. Land classifications been changed thru corruption to facilitate such.
Lessons from Asia
Approximately 10,000 Jamaicans were murdered by the gun between 2003-2013, and there is no civil war.
It is quite unfortunate that Jamaica is being led by intellectuals who have an inferiority complex concerning anything European. There are too many scholars who have decided to argue for reparation instead of creating tangible solutions to national ailments. The institution of chattel slavery has been abolished for 175 years, but Europeans are still being blamed for the region’s problems. All while many academics do not examine the circumstances which made ancient peoples of the developing world subservient to their European colonisers.
Contrary to what many would want us to believe, Europe was never the bastion of civilisation. Europeans have been successful over the years because they have done what many other races refused to do — benchmark. According to John M Hobson, author of the book The Eastern Origin of the Western Civilisation, Western intellectual doctrines and inventions occurred as a result of contact with Eastern cultures and not Greek and Roman traditions. Although Hobson’s thesis has been criticised by mainstream scholars, it highlights the benefits that a country can obtain when it refuses to operate like a closed nation.
Many scholars have argued that one of the reasons for the triumph of the West as an industrial power is the complacency of the East. For example, the Song Dynasty of China was the first government in the world to issue paper notes, and by 1100 AD, China was the most advanced country in the world. However, according to noted historian David Landes, the East stopped innovating. In 1432, China outlawed the building of ocean-going ships — an area which she dominated — and the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan banned firearms. Furthermore, the policies of the last imperial dynasty of China, the Qing Dynasty, policies outlawed foreign trade and restricted commerce by creating a government-controlled guild system. This resulted in what scholars dub The Great Divergence — the process by which Western Europe surpassed the East, becoming the world’s economic hub.
Today, the East is being restored to its former glory because its leaders have decided to promote innovation and benchmarking. For example, in 1871 Japan established the Iwakura mission with the purpose being to study the sophisticated systems of the West in order to effect the modernisation of Japan. While, in the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping presided over the economic modernisation of China, Deng also examined the Singaporean model.
Japan is now the most technologically advanced nation in the world, producing more patents than all countries, and China has the world’s second largest economy. Before, deluded intellects in Jamaica bash Europe, they must realise that a country can only become superior to its rival by beating it at its own game — that’s what Asia did.
Local intellectuals should understand that Jamaica needs a global culture in order to succeed, being obsessed with local culture will carry us nowhere.
Lipton Matthews
lo_matthews@yahoo.com
Satan Force, the next fallacy which is being promoted is that we need Caricom, the free trade area shoulddcontinue to exist but we don’t need the other bureaucratic organs like the CCJ.. We don’t have intellectually independent people in Jamaica, therefore I decided to write to dispel some myths
Regional organisations are created to foster political and economic cooperation among states within a particular geographical boundary. Therefore, in order to achieve their goals and objectives these organisations will need transformational leaders whose strategic vision and capable leadership will facilitate development.
Caricom was created to facilitate the development of the region, but during the last 30 years a serious implementation deficit has plagued the organisation. This deficit has not only hindered the development of the region, it has also rendered most of its institutions useless. Further, innumerable reports have been commissioned to examine the reasons for the lacklustre performance of Caricom, these include: The West Indian Commission and the recently concluded Landell Mills report — both reports alluded to the inherent weaknesses of Caricom’s governance structure.
Since, regional leaders know the problems affecting Caricom, it is their responsibility to chart the course for the region’s development, however due to the culture of insularity and parochialism of various islands this will be unlikely. Most member states are not willing to put regional interest above national interest.
For example, Mrs Persad-Bissessar stated three years ago that Trinidad will only provide assistance to disaster-affected countries if Trinidad benefits. So, if these countries require houses Trinidadians must be employed as builders. In addition, successive secretary generals have often complained about the lack of support which the Secretariat receives from heads of government, but nothing will be done to create a stronger Secretariat, because this will infringe on the autonomy of individual states.
Furthermore, free trade is an integral aspect of the Treaty of Chaguaramas, but Trinidad and Barbados have violated this agreement on countless occasions in order to protect their domestic market. Additionally, the free movement of skill workers is a policy of Caricom, but over 1,420 Jamaicans have been refused entry into Barbados over the past five years. The Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME) is also a cause for concern. Originally the CSME was expected to come on stream in 2008, but the date was changed to 2015. According to Caricom’s Secretary General Mr Irwin Larocque that deadline is too ambition, so the 2015 target will not be met. So, Caricom can be described as an organisation which sets lofty goals and never achieves them.
Any organisation which does not adhere to the rules which it created will never survive. Conversely, the Bajans know that it does not suit them to sign onto the CSME agreement, because most members states are relatively poor and the Jamaican dollar, in particular, has depreciated over the years. Caricom will never be successful because, regional leaders are too short-sighted and insular in their thinking and since most countries are not committed to regionalism, the organisation should be dissolved.
Caricom does not benefit Jamaica and we should not allow the current administration to keep Jamaica in Caricom because it members are in love with idea of regionalism. Any institution which finds it hard to play by its own rules, is a like a pariah state waiting to be destroyed. Jamaica should seriously re-evalaute its relationship with Caricom
Lipton Matthews
lo_matthews@yahoo.com
Now I personally am not into that Thomas Sowell, Chicago School, libertarian quackery – I see the need for unions even in short, high turnover work. Don’t believe me? Just sit down and have a talk with someone who’s worked ar a call centre. Bow, having said that – our food, security guard and employment issues are just a manifestation of what I call the Managerial State (tentatively Cyberocracy – Rule by Control and Feedback Systems.) And what is it that the state is managing? The democratic process itself.Can’t let it get out of hand, lest the niggers escape from that mental plantation. I actually believe that our leaders are at the stage where they think of themselves ad ubermenschen, standing head and shoulders above the rest of us as those few that have managed to escape the plantation – whrn most of them are just mediocrities with so-so law degrees.
Like any other system of government, the Managerial State can be competently run, or poorly run. One would have expected that with 20 odd years of NP rule, we would have had some policy that would have had allowed us to achieve food independence -Amirite? Nah. You have these PNP negroes saying that in these modern times you can’t “leave trade agreements.” Why the fuck nt?If you’re going to institute systemso f control that prevent me reaching my intellectual and social potential , you could at least give me a welfare system and some cheap food! The amount of taxes that I pay from my salary and paycheck certainly justify that!
The real problem with our “intellectual” class is not their inferiority complex with regards to Europeans (see Mike Henry), but the lack of any scientific technocracy. That we have had tertiary education for over 50 years, yet have failed to create a reliable scientific class that can solve our agricultural and energy problems an save/earn us some foreign exchange. Instead we have chemists working in call centers and squeezing pipettes over at Lasco. The joke is, this is a solved problem. You go from light industry, to heavy industry (manufacturing, agriculture, exports, energy) with low interest rates for your people to borrow money to start businesses, public/private partnerships if the banks don’t want to lend, or if your international competition is too strong, technical assistance from the multi-nationals and your European former colonizers and subsidies and tariffs that keep your competitors (ie ,GET OUT OFF CARICOM)from getting a leg up on you. This is the strategies of the Asian Tigers.
That is you feed a nation – proper industrial policy, not backyard farms.
Very good discourse guys.
I may open up myself to be call a dunce, lazy even, but I have no time to read the long dissertations posted here – a nice short contribution is all I can manage.
You know what is funny? Just check to see who is importing all this stuff – they may well be on the list to receive national honours or have already received such as “outstanding businessmen/women.”
Read Mich. These things are not long
Not dunce. You just need to work your reading muscles. Just read one or rwo, then work to , say , 15 page important papers in time. I’ll be posting some important links to studies related to the stuff that me and Lipton are talking about.