Halt Farmland Capture

Chris Serju, GUEST COLUMNIST

The Government's ongoing failure to finalise a national land-use policy, which would provide detailed guidance in the proper and sustainable utilisation of the many competing options, is a prescription for disaster, written, endorsed and skilfully orchestrated by Jamaica's policymakers.

At the non-event of a post-Budget press conference hosted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries at its Hope Gardens office recently, the day after his presentation to the Sectoral Debate, Agriculture Minister Roger Clarke and Permanent Secretary Donovan Stanberry admitted that the more important issues of a national food and nutrition policy and food safety had taken precedence in the previous year.

With those matters out of the way, it is now hoped that the Office of the Chief Parliamentary Counsel, that group of invisible, non-accountable, amorphous, well-paid, civil servants - which clearly is a law unto itself - will see it fit to finally attend this trivial matter. Trivial, because clearly in the mind of this group which dictates the pace and priority of national development, it is a non-issue.

Regrettably, this office has been aided and abetted by successive political administrations which have been very skilfully scoring major points with constituents as they glibly break ground for new housing projects, in the process eroding the stock of available land for farming, as they proudly claim to empower Jamaicans to own a piece of this little rock.

The conspiracy is carried further by media houses which give prime time and front-page prominence to news that more Jamaicans are now 'proud owners of their own homes', without checking into the real cost the nation, at large, is paying and will ultimately pay.

ARABLE LAND IN DECLINE

As we buy into this deception that Government is really doing good for the people, many fail to see that the tracts of good arable land are declining at an alarming rate, and very soon we will all be comfortably ensconced in our own little or not-so-little places of abode, pigging out on imported food, as we recall that fallacy called the Grow What We Eat, Eat What We Grow campaign.

For how does it make sense to address concerns on food safety, security and nutrition, without also putting in place concomitant measures to ensure that we have enough food to be concerned about in the first place?

The World Food Summit of 1996 defined food security as existing "when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life". Commonly, the concept of food security is defined as including both physical and economic access to food that meets people's dietary needs, as well as their food preferences.

I was concerned upon first learning that a section of the Caymanas Estate, which in the past had been a showpiece of prime agricultural production, had been earmarked for housing development. Now a gated community stands in a place where years ago corn, among other crops, stood tall. I see that a section of the Innswood Estate, also in St Catherine, is to be the site of what seems to be a gated community, located directly in front of the Innswood High School.

These are just two examples of the best agricultural lands taken out of production and put into housing, as politicians score points with constituents and farmers struggle to eke out a living on marginal land.

My concern was echoed by Senator Norman Grant, president of the Jamaica Agricultural Society, as he addressed the recent launch of AgroFest 2013: "When you take out those lands, you lose them for eternity, and quite frankly you can build houses on the rock, but you can't plant crops there. So there needs to be a process of discussion and engagement to ensure that our capacity to produce food in the way distant future is preserved."

PRIME FARMLAND LOSt

Thousand of acres of prime arable land are being taken out of farming, with sugar lands again under the hammer. Under the sugar transformation programme, which is being undertaken with a seeming endless pot of gold from the European Union, under which housing is being provided for current and former sugar workers, more than $650 million is earmarked to build almost 400 houses for more than 750 persons in four parishes.

While I have not been able to determine the total acreage of prime farmland to be converted to housing solutions, it is enough to cause concern, especially in light of the lack of political will to stop any housing or other developments, even in the face of evidence-based outcry about the negative environmental and other fallout.

Sadly, however, I hold out no hope that this trend will be checked or reversed during my lifetime, since elected representatives who stand to gain significant mileage by way of the lifetime adulation of grateful constituents and their descendants will never muster the political will to stop this tragedy.

A properly articulated land-use policy would set out the terms and conditions under which land should be utilised, and in the event of a change of use would include a prescribed formula of engagement, not with politicians but, rather, people in the know who have a genuine love for Jamaica.

Appropriate sanctions

It would also include appropriate sanctions for persons who breach these rules, leaving little room for politicians to escape accountability, forcing them to do the appropriate due diligence instead of the sleight of hand which now prevails. We must develop the insight to see through and speak out against these 'development' projects which benefit few in the medium term but stand to hurt us all in the long term.

An old American Indian, asked to comment on the introduction of daylight saving time, which was being sold as major time-saving initiative, said at a measured pace: "Only the paleface (white man) could cut off a length of one foot from the top of the blanket, sew it on to the bottom of the blanket and then declare with pride - that he now had a longer blanket."

I think it is time to stand up to those among us who speak with forked tongues, before we find ourselves with very little place and space, literally, to make a stand.

Journalist Christopher Serju reports on agriculture and rural development. Email feedback to columns@ gleanerjm.com and christopher.serju@gleanerjm.com.