Editorial | Not too late to halt Bernard Lodge city

We are not against the Greater Bernard Lodge master plan serving as a model for development elsewhere in Jamaica, only not at Bernard Lodge, on the plains of St Catherine. Or rather, that part of the plan that calls for planting nearly four square miles of what the Government’s National Environment Planning Agency (NEPA) calls Jamaica’s “most fertile … A1 soil” under concrete and steel to establish Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ proposed new city. That element of the plan should not be let anywhere near arable land, which should be left for farm production.

Indeed, it is not too late for the PM to call a halt to the housing portion of the project and go ahead with the integrated agricultural/agro-processing part of it. That would still count as a significant legacy for Mr Holness.

The Bernard Lodge project, which Mr Holness reaffirmed last week, has to be placed in the context of the limited, and dwindling, amount of Jamaica’s land space that is available for agriculture. Around 37 per cent of Jamaica was once considered suitable for agriculture. That is now less than 20 per cent. Much of the change occurred over the past half-century or so of rapid urbanisation. Large swathes of arable land have been turned over to housing and other developments.

It has not helped that the decline of sugar, and other traditional agricultural crops, left many thousands acres of land idle and ready for developers. For example, a 2007 survey by the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) found that over the previous decade, land in farming dropped by 95,770 hectares (236,653 acres), or 22.7 per cent, to 325,810 hectares (805,094 acres).

Bernard Lodge, once a sprawling sugar plantation of nearly 30 square miles, is symptomatic of this decline, worsened by Jamaica’s loss of preferential agricultural markets and was forced into competition with other, more efficient commodity producers.

UNIQUE CHARACTERISTICS

But Bernard Lodge has unique characteristics. Notably, the area is an expanse of flatland, making it suitable for mechanised agriculture. It is home to an array of aquifers and is among the most productive sources of water on the island’s south coast. It has a network of irrigation canals. And very critically, as NEPA, the Government’s premier environmental agency pointed out, Bernard Lodge has Jamaica’s most fertile soil. The sum of all this is that Bernard Lodge is prime agricultural real estate. It is a place where things should be grown.

Unfortunately, in recent years, as bits of Bernard Lodge and other of the island’s agricultural properties were being swiped for housing, Jamaicans, including this newspaper, were inattentive. That, in part, is understandable. With around 900,000 Jamaicans, nearly a third of the population, either squatting or living in informal settlements or decayed urban communities, the island has a major housing crisis. One of the policy solutions has been suburban housing schemes,which often meant gobbling up idle farmlands.

The Bernard Lodge scheme, first announced in 2018, is intended to bring a twist to that model. Based on the latest available information, 5,400 acres (over eight square miles) has been allocated to the project. Of this, 3,027 acres (56 per cent) are set aside for agriculture and related facilities. The land for agriculture is 70 per cent more than was initially intended, before the complaints about more houses being put on farmlands. The remaining 2,373 acres will accommodate around 16,000 houses, as well as commercial and light industrial facilities.

AGRICULTURE AND AGRO-PROCESSING

We support the agricultural and agro-processing project, including the concept of large, privately owned industrial farms serving as hubs around which smaller ones will revolve. Indeed, modernising agriculture and enhancing the efficiency of the sector are important to accelerating the attack on Jamaica’s annual food import bill of US$1 billion, of which up to a quarter, experts say, could be offset by domestic substitutes. Increased agricultural output also goes to improving food security, a matter that the disruption of global supply chains, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, has placed firmly back on people’s agenda.

Global warming and climate change should also cause us to pay more attention to domestic food production. Indeed, scientists predict that a hotter planet could cause agricultural yields to fall by up to a third. This could mean scarcities and/or rising prices for commodities. Against this backdrop, Jamaica should want its arable land available for the production of food and other crops, not under real estate.

If a city of 17,000 homes, as was originally prescribed for the Bernard Lodge city, is required, marginal lands can be found elsewhere for that purpose. Most of the creative ideas intended for Bernard Lodge could then be incorporated into that scheme.