EDITORIAL - How Mr Harris proves our point

WE HAVE finally been able to place our finger on the biggest problem facing agriculture in Jamaica, it having been confirmed by Glendon Harris, the president of record of the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS) in a letter published by this newspaper last Friday.

Mr Harris had this to say about the recently held Denbigh agricultural show: "We are heartened by the stream of letters to the media and our offices, as well as numerous telephone calls to the various radio talk shows paying accolades to the JAS for organising the 'biggest and best' show of its kind to date in the Western Hemisphere."

The Western Hemisphere, we remind, encompasses all the countries of the Americas, including the world's most advanced economy, the United States, and some, not least Canada, Brazil, Argentina and Chile, with very sophisticated agricultural economies and highly distinguished farm shows.

None of this, of course, gives any of these countries, or any other in the Western Hemisphere, any monopoly on quality. Nor do we presume it impossible for Jamaicans to be the best in the world at some things. For, in fact we are. Our great achievement, however, is not in agriculture or organising farm shows, as most perceptive Jamaicans would appreciate.

Culture of calcified mediocrity

Our grave concern, though, is that we do not believe that Mr Harris was merely engaging in a bit of hyperbole. He most likely does believe that the Denbigh show, generally, and the event of a fortnight ago, particularly, is the best agricultural exhibition in the Western Hemisphere. And perhaps the world.

This, of course, is not necessarily Mr Harris' fault. He, like his recent predecessors, is trapped in a culture of calcified mediocrity that exemplifies the 115-year-old organisation, that moves and acts its age, but is unaware that things can be different.

Which brings us to a point we have articulated before in these columns: the poor judgement and deficit of leadership in the JAS and, therefore, its inability, as now constituted, to contribute seriously to the resuscitation of agriculture.

So, we again offer the JAS a sound bit of advice. It would do best to dissolve itself, leaving room for the reconstitution of a new, visionary farm sector body, with perceptive and innovative leadership that has not expropriated the organisation and themselves appropriated by other forces, such as political parties.

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