Ja­maica’s Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness says his coun­try needs a com­mer­cial ecosys­tem that pro­motes long-term in­vest­ment in the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor to sig­nif­i­cant­ly boost na­tion­al out­puts and ful­ly sus­tain vis­i­tors to the is­land.

Hol­ness told del­e­gates at­tend­ing the Caribbean Poul­try As­so­ci­a­tion (CPA) Eighth In­ter­na­tion­al Tech­ni­cal Sym­po­sium and Ex­hi­bi­tion that ends here on Thurs­day that with more than four mil­lion vis­i­tors com­ing to Ja­maica an­nu­al­ly, col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the agri­cul­ture and tourism sec­tors is es­sen­tial to en­sure that the is­land’s au­then­tic ex­pe­ri­ence ex­tends to its food.

Hol­ness high­light­ed the poul­try in­dus­try’s suc­cess in util­is­ing long-term sup­ply con­tracts as a mod­el for the agri­cul­ture sec­tor to adopt, say­ing “the mod­el that has been de­vel­oped and has worked so well in the poul­try in­dus­try is that you give your farm­ers long-term sup­ply con­tracts so they can make, up-front, the in­vest­ment, and know it will be se­cured in terms of the re­cov­ery of that in­vest­ment over time”

Hol­ness said that farm­ers are of­ten ex­empt­ed be­cause “mas­sive cap­i­tal in­vest­ments” are nec­es­sary to es­tab­lish con­trolled farm­ing prac­tices that can en­dure the ebbs and flows and the cycli­cal na­ture of agri­cul­ture.

“To have con­trolled farm­ing, you (must) have large in­vest­ments in, whether it is ir­ri­ga­tion, whether it is con­trolled en­vi­ron­ment and tem­per­a­tures or grow (green) hous­es. That takes sig­nif­i­cant cap­i­tal in­vest­ment. For that to hap­pen, you can’t make that in­vest­ment on the un­cer­tain­ty of one or two crops. You need long-term cer­tain­ty for the pur­chase of your out­put.”

Prime Min­is­ter Hol­ness cit­ed the ab­sence of ag­gre­ga­tors in large-scale agri­cul­tur­al ven­tures as a bar­ri­er to ex­tend­ing long-term sup­ply con­tracts to farm­ers.

He said to ad­dress this sit­u­a­tion, he has in­struct­ed the Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Fish­eries and Min­ing, Floyd Green, and Min­is­ter of Tourism, Ed­mund Bartlett, to fa­cil­i­tate long-term sup­ply con­tracts be­tween tourism op­er­a­tors and farm­ers.

“We have to cre­ate the com­mer­cial ecosys­tem that sup­ports the long-term in­vest­ment of farm­ers that gives them that cer­tain­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of re­turn so that they can in­vest in in­creas­ing out­put. It is clear that the poul­try in­dus­try leads the way in that, and it’s a good mod­el for us to study and learn from.”

Hol­ness said while the poul­try in­dus­try has faced chal­lenges over the years, the sec­tor has shown progress and con­tin­ues to grow.

This year’s In­ter­na­tion­al Tech­ni­cal Sym­po­sium and Ex­hi­bi­tion marks the 25th an­niver­sary of the CPA.

The con­fer­ence is ex­am­in­ing the poul­try’s im­pact on the Caribbean, un­der the theme “Be­yond Farm­ing: The True Im­pact of Poul­try’, while fos­ter­ing greater col­lab­o­ra­tion among in­dus­try stake­hold­ers and pol­i­cy­mak­ers.