EDITORIAL - What, really, are agro-parks?

Agro-parks must be good things. Roger Clarke, the agriculture minister, talks about them a lot. So, too, does Peter Phillips, the finance minister.

Indeed, in these hard economic times, in which he is facing the strictures of the International Monetary Fund, Dr Phillips is allowing the agriculture minister to spend more than J$1 billion on these parks.

Both men believe that the agro-parks, eight of which are supposed to be established by the Government, will be transformational. They will modernise agriculture, help to cut the island's near US$1-billion food import, even increase exports and, important, create jobs.

The problem is that we don't understand what agro-parks are, or are supposed to be. Sorry, that's not quite true.

About a year ago, speaking in Parliament about the performance of the agriculture sector, Mr Clarke said: "An agro-park is an agricultural development area, equipped with the requisite infrastructure and facilities to facilitate integrated agricultural chain.

GETTING TO THE 'HOW'

"In these parks, we intend to grow crops for which clear markets have been identified, and participants will be required to subject themselves to technical advice, contracted production and a commitment to shared services. We will commence two of these agro-parks in this financial year in Ebony Park, Clarendon, and Ettingdon in Trelawny." Apparently, some of these parks, covering more than 8,000 of the 20,000-plus acres, have been established.

What this newspaper and, we dare say, most Jamaicans remain ignorant of, is how these agro-parks will operate: the nuts and bolts of the scheme.

It has not been detailed, for instance, whether having put in the basic infrastructure, the Government will sell and/or lease the lands to a single farmer, several farmers or cause farmers to form themselves into cooperatives. Nor are we aware of the obligations of the farmers under the schemes and the terms on which they will receive services from the Government and/or its agencies.

Neither Mr Clarke nor his technocrats have spoken with clarity on these matters. Insofar as they addressed them, it has been in broad concepts - ephemeral almost.

HISTORY REPEATED?

We raise these questions not out of cynicism or to be critical. For, we would wish the parks, whatever they are, to be successful, if they are successful in displacing a portion of our food bill and provide employment. Indeed, this newspaper believes in, and has argued for, aggressive policy support for agriculture as a fast way to address Jamaica's problem of joblessness and underemployment and to shore up rural economies. Further, it may be a sign that Mr Clarke is capable of seeing agriculture through the prism of the 20th century.

But we also want to be certain that this project avoids the mistakes of the past with potentially good ideas. The Pioneer Farms and land-lease projects of the 1970s, when the Manley Government attempted to settle young people on idle lands, went badly awry. The politics of ideology and whimsy trumped economics and the pioneer collectives soon came to ruin. Or, they grew crops other than for dietary consumption.

Edward Seaga's 1980s idea of large, high-tech mother farms being the centre around which small-holders' satellite farms orbited, ended with huge debts and the unsavoury trail by the Israeli operator of one.

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