4 Responses to “An Economic Action Plan for Jamaica, Jamaicans United for Sustainable Development”

• norman on January 2nd, 2011 at 10:42 am

  Weaknesses/omissions from the Action Plan
  - agriculture and rural development–food sovereignty– a major reorientiation of development policy is needed
  - education and training–with over 60 percent of labour force under-eductaed, how can all the other plans succeed?
  - sustainable development–much more than modest proposals for renewable energy–must include sustainable tourism, organic agriculture, long-term water management, reafforestation, etc.
  Norman

• Dorienne Rowan-Campbell on January 2nd, 2011 at 2:07 pm

  I agree with Norman. Currently I am working on (i) agreement for National Standards on Organic Agriculture through the Bureau of Standards, the draft will also go to CROQ to serve as the basis of a Caricom model. JOAM ( Jamaica Organic Agriculture Movement’s original local standards form the basis of this work. http://www.joamltd.org
  (ii) National Policy on Organic Agriculture

  We need to have linkage on these sorts of issues with the National Action Plan. Organic agriculture should form the backbone of emerging agricultural policy as this is the form of agriculture that possesses greatest mitigation for climate change. remember that, per hectare, organic agriculture releases 46 -66% less GHG than conventional farming methods.

  After the Nagoya conference WB committed to calculating cost/benefits of ecological protection. Again commitment to protection of ecology biodiversity etc is the cornerstone of organic production methods. Currently farmers are paying a great deal of the national ecological protection bill with no recompense or recognition. We should soon be bale to calculate $ vale more easily. The current private planting partnership policy with Forestry is the only national policy which recognises in any economic terms the vale of such protection by granting land tax exemptions.

  These are but a few examples. We should be using the EPA more effectively too to build clear linkages with food production and related services.
  I was not able to attend the meeting but willing to work with anyone interested din bumping up this area.

  Happy New Year

• Rebekah Lawrence on January 5th, 2011 at 8:54 am

  laudable plan. i commend the efforts. also agree that rural development/agriculture, sustainable tourism, education, etc are too critical to omit in these current times. i wonder also about the governance behind such an economic plan… it is also void of any gender considerations… that may have been implicitly unintentional seeing as how ALL of the panelists were male…. it may not have occurred to them that some of the very issues they raise have implications that affect men and women differently. nevertheless it is a start and cannot knock them for that.

• Dr. Elvis Nurse on January 8th, 2011 at 8:58 pm

  Agro-Processing - This is critical for sustainable agriculture and food sovereignty. We need to maximize the facilities at the SRC and seek ways to commercialize existing research that languish on the shelves

  Elvis