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Home | Hotel Construction Boom Provides Opportunities for Farmers – Minister Green
Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining, Hon. Floyd Green
The hotel construction boom across St. Ann and St. James presents opportunities for local farmers to boost domestic production to supply the expected demand for food, says Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining, Hon. Floyd Green.
“We are witnessing a historical surge in our hospitality infrastructure,” he said.
“In Montego Bay, mega-resorts like Moon Palace and Hard Rock and the ultra-luxury Pinnacle towers are rising rapidly. Meanwhile, St. Ann is expanding through the massive Bahia Principe expansion and the upcoming Secrets Resort in Richmond. This massive growth means an insatiable local market for fresh agricultural goods,” he pointed out.
Minister Green, who was addressing farmers at a recent function in Runaway Bay, St. Ann, said that local agricultural workers must immediately target the high-volume commodities heavily utilised by the hotels.
“Hotels have an enormous, continuous appetite for high-quality Irish potatoes, eggs, pepper, onion, and scallion,” he said.
“However, to capture this market, our farmers must strictly treat agriculture as a serious business. The absolute core requirement is consistency and uncompromised quality. We simply cannot have products available today and completely absent tomorrow. This major localisation push forms the core of Jamaica’s strategic economic resilience policy,” the Minister pointed out.
He said that the Ministry is fast-tracking critical infrastructure investments, including high-tech greenhouse hubs to help farmers maintain a steady, unyielding supply of produce.
Speaking at a recent function in Montego Bay, Tourism Minister, Hon. Edmund Bartlett, noted that the Government’s Tourism 3.0 framework aims to drastically reduce the island’s reliance on expensive foreign food products and slash the national importation bill.
“Every single piece of food imported for our hotels represents a leakage of valuable foreign exchange,” he pointed out.
“By aggressively sourcing our food internally, we ensure the complete retention of foreign earnings from both the agricultural and tourism sectors. This keeps profits directly within our rural communities and builds true economic security,” he pointed out.
Farmers’ cooperatives across St. James and St. Ann are being urged to utilise the Agro-Invest Corporation network to secure long-term supply contracts with the hotels.
