Cut the import bill

This is the third instalment of our new feature, 'Hear Me Out!', where our roving reporters invite so-called ordinary citizens to be a columnist for a day.

IF WE WANT to get Jamaicans to plant more local produce, we should cut down on importation, which would force people back to the fields. That's the way to go.

When you can't get it, you start to produce it. You have to force the people back to the land.

Those people who have run away from the country area, they should be there farming. Instead, they have run to the big city where they scuffle and spoil themselves, so the Government should push them to go back to plant more.

When they can't get the quick thing off the shelf, they will go back and start growing it. The market must also be there for farmers to sell when they produce.

When Jamaicans can't get the imported food/produce to buy, they will have to buy and eat local produce, so we will have to cut back on imported food items. Too many imports are flooding the island. If Jamaicans can't get the imported foodstuff, that will definitely force them to buy and eat locally produced food.

Through the back door

We have to import less. For example, you have lots of small farmers around trying to grow their chickens. Instead of buying the imported chicken back and things that are coming in through the back door, the small farmers can do it and they can make a dollar too, when less is imported.

The Government would have to look seriously at importing less. Let the small people like housewives, babymothers do something for themselves and support their children by raising chickens and goats, and be vigilant against the praedial thieves. Communities have to get together and produce more locally, so that when less food is being imported, consumers will have to buy and eat food that's produced locally.

Good, locally produced foodstuff is out there, like Irish potato, cabbage, tomato and carrot. Why should we import those things? The hotels should be coming in and supporting the local market. We can feed ourselves, if the Government puts certain restrictions on imported items, especially foodstuff.

Vernon Anderson is a rice farmer in Hartlands, St Catherine