Farmers urged to speak with one voice

Christopher Serju, Gleaner Writer

One private-sector executive wants Jamaican businesses to collaborate with Caribbean partners to maximise efficiencies to benefit fully from the many and varied trade agreements.

Conley Salmon, vice-president for agricultural marketing at Jamaica Broilers (JB), which owns and markets the Best Dressed Chicken brand, told a recent Gleaner Editors' Forum that regional cooperation saved the day for poultry farmers who felt threatened by these trade agreements at the start of the millennium.

He said it was through liaising with the Caribbean Poultry Association that farming interests here understood that under the World Trade Organisation (WTO), there were boundaries placed on imports to protect local industries.

Quick action

Quick cooperation among businesses enabled the Jamaican poultry industry, cited in a survey as the largest in the region and a major employer of labour, to put mechanisms in place and capitalise on opportunities, Salmon said.

"We had to look very quickly at what the WTO allowed for. We had to educate ourselves because ... the rules become more complex, they are written by lawyers, not by people with machetes. They are written by bureaucrats in back rooms for the benefit of the nations.

Large nations have large teams of lawyers in the WTO, small nations like us might not even have one," he told the forum, themed 'Expanding Agricultural Trade: Opportunities and Threats'.

Salmon said failure to have input in the early stages of the negotiations meant that agricultural accords were often a fait accompli by the time farmers begin to raise concerns.

The JB vice-president argued that the regional poultry sector was a shining example of strategising to protect indigenous industries. He told his colleagues in the private sector that they should never be afraid to look at problems openly and speak about them.

No place for complacency

Salmon also warned against the kind of complacency which he believes destroyed the dairy industry, even though safeguards, such as the anti-dumping board, were in place at the time. He had this advice for the private sector:

"The departments have to work quickly. The fact that farmers have limited cash flow restrains their ability to manage onslaughts, so we have to have safety mechanisms that are highly responsive to these threats and understand that their mission statement is really the protection of local industries.

"You think that when you go to Japan with one bag of rice, they won't lock you up? And they understand why. One bag of rice is not a threat, but it is the foot in the door that brings the rest in and so we need to develop those cultures within the civil service and the private sector. ... Small enterprise doesn't have a lot of time and manpower to do it, but we have to do it."