By Mickella Anderson
More local fruits and ground provisions will be able to reach international shores, as Jamaica now has export market access to several additional countries. Minister of agriculture, fisheries and mining, Floyd Green, said among these is Barbados for pineapples.
“We [also] now have market access to Cayman for frozen ackee, soursop, sweetsop, breadfruit, plantain, yam, sweet and Irish potato. We are now allowed to export all of those to the Cayman Islands,” he informed.
The minister was speaking during the recent launch of the 2023 Denbigh Agricultural, Industrial and Food Show at Hi-Pro Ace Supercentre in St Catherine.
Minister Green further advised that “we’ve been working with Trinidad [and Tobago where] we now have access for bananas, and we’ve been working with the United States of America (USA), and we now have access for June plum and soursop.”
Green commended the Plant Quarantine and Produce Inspection team for their role in achieving the feat.
Noting that these markets are of “high value”, he urged that producers must make use of the new opportunities.
“It means we have to ramp up our production. All of these markets can give us significant returns. What we have to be able to do is to fulfil that demand,” the minister implored.
Minister Green maintained that the nation “must be bullish about exports”, pointing out that “that is how we’re truly going to see wealth creation in agriculture; we are a small country, but we have immense reach.”
