Samuda wants youths in agriculture

Agriculture Minister Karl Samuda is blaming the lack of infrastructural development in rural areas for the migration of trained young people to urban areas.

Samuda said that infrastructural issues, coupled with the exigencies of climate change, have been driving young people away from farming.

"At the root of the problem is the need for infrastructural development in rural Jamaica, and by infrastructural development, I mean both hard infrastructure and soft infrastructure," said Samuda.

"Hard infrastructural development has to do with roads, water and electricity, while soft infrastructural development has to do with technology."

The minister, who was speaking at last Thursday's World Food Day National Ceremony and Exhibition at the Knockalva Agricultural School in Ramble, Hanover, said both hard and soft infrastructural developments are necessary to create economic growth and development.

"You cannot develop a community at this time in our history, unless you expose every child to access to Internet services," said Samuda. "My ministry is seeking to ensure that in all the rural areas that we are trying to encourage youngsters to remain in farming, they are able to keep in touch with the rest of the world through technology."

"We in Jamaica cannot afford to ignore climate change because we know that for us to grow agriculture, we need to depend on the supply of water, while finding the answers to the emerging frequency of droughts and hurricanes," Samuda said.