Editorial | Agriculture add-on to sugary drink ban

Jamaica dithered on doing something about the unhealthy foods fed to children in the island's schools. So, we are pleased about the ban on sugary drinks that is planned from next January. But sodas are not the only culprit for the epidemic of obesity and other lifestyle diseases. Jamaicans generally, and increasingly, eat unhealthily.

In this regard, schools are not a bad place to launch a major assault on poor nutrition. And the good thing is that it offers a potential policy lever the Government can engage to the benefit of the economy.

Non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension and various cardiovascular aliments and cancers, account for more than seven out of 10 premature deaths in Jamaica, and their treatment consumes around a third of what the Government spends on healthcare. And the main precursor to this worsening problem is the country's crisis of obesity.

At the start of the 2000s, an estimated 45 per cent of Jamaicans were overweight. Now, more than six out of every 10 of us (63 per cent) are - and a big chunk chronically so. Over 10 per cent of children fall in this category. It has to do, in large part, to an explosion in the consumption of sugar-laden foods, including sugar-sweetened drinks - whose sales have increased upwards of 40 per cent in each of the past two years - and too little exercise. Seventy per cent of children, and closer to eight in 10 for adults, consume at least one sugar-sweetened drink daily, and, according to government data, the island's adolescents rank in the world's top 10 as consumers of such products.

Targeting children

Dr Christopher Tufton has made combating this epidemic a priority of his incumbency at the health ministry, targeting especially children. He has promoted the idea of taxing sugary drinks. While nearly 80 per cent of Jamaicans say they agree - especially if the revenue was channelled into combating obesity - the Government has, thus far, not felt itself capable of implementing such a measure. Its next best option, at least for now, insofar as the administration sees it, is the restricting of sugar-sweetened drinks in schools - those that contain sugar added by the manufacturer. Natural, unsweetened juices and unsweetened milk will be allowed.

Jump-start agricultural sector

This, though, ought to be only the beginning of deeper reforms that go beyond a nutrition policy for schools, such as is being crafted by the health and education ministries. We see an opportunity to jump-start Jamaica's agricultural sector and to accelerate a programme of import substitution.

Jamaica spends around US$700 million a year on food imports, although the bill has been as much as US$900 million. It is estimated that up to a quarter of these imports could be substituted with domestic production, which presumes growing and processing more foods locally.

That, if it were to happen, would be a boon to domestic agriculture. The sector employs nearly 200,000 people and, according to analysis by the International Monetary Fund, there is a strong correlation between the fortunes of the agricultural sector and the wider economy. When agriculture grows, so does the economy.

The Government spends nearly J$7 billion on its school-feeding programmes. It is not clear how much of that goes to buying locally grown produce. The Government, by leveraging this spending on school feeding, can help stimulate agriculture and at the same time improve nutrition among schoolchildren. It could mandate that all, or close to it as possible, of what is fed to children under these programmes be grown locally. Nutritionists should be engaged to craft healthy and tasty meals from these produce, and suppliers given a deadline to conform to the policy.

The potential for agriculture should be clear to Audley Shaw in his new job of agriculture minister. He should grasp it.