Repositioning agriculture among youth is necessary for Jamaica: Floyd Green

Kingston, Jamaica— Agriculture and Fisheries Minister, Floyd Green, stated that there is needs to be a general repositioning of agriculture among the youth of this nation, which includes how it is displayed in the school system and by extension. Unfortunately, agriculture is observed by society as a more inferior career opportunity.

He added that there has to be a more prominent approach and a more significant relook, and a part of that relook will have to begin in our education sector.

Motivating to the students, he said that Agriculture is not an inconsiderable profession. It's not a fallback profession. It is not something we do if youth don't have anything else to do. We need agriculture to be given the dignity of place in our education curriculum and not just to taught to our pupils based on primary agriculture.

As per the minister, the agriculture curriculum must also epitomise the agri-business push that is needed in the society at big scale.

"So, we want more of the market of agriculture, the dollars and cents of agriculture, the value of production, the markets, how we write our business plans, how we look to value-added [products] and how we look to agro-processing," he added.

Given the modern reality, the minister said the agriculture curriculum has to address climate change, innovation and technology directly.

He also has a wish that young people of his country proudly choose agriculture as a career scope.

He appealed to the people of a country that we all have to relook if our youth in agriculture implies that we will have to take a rethink at how we position agriculture, how we stand in the sector and a realisation that the sector is a business and that we need our young people to choose the career.

The minister also stated that it has already formulated a programme to help in this area, which will see successful farmers sharing their stories.

With a sad heart he added that Nothing inspires participation more than inspirational tales of success and unfortunately, the reality is, Most of the time when we hear stories about agriculture and farming we listen to the sad stories.

Though, he said that the part of the ministry's job is to share the farmer's success stories, so that new people can know that there is a rich future in agriculture.