The Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) is being restructured to incorporate all extension officers assigned to various commodity boards, Chief Executive Officer Winston Simpson announced on Tuesday.
The reorganisation will see the agency’s staff complement rise by 100 people.
“RADA, as we evolve, has found that demand from our clientele has increased tremendously. We started out as a little production unit of the ministry. We are now an institution, expanding our services and are soon to receive all the extension officers in the various commodity organisations,” Simpson disclosed at an acceptance ceremony for six rubber wheel tractors to the agency.
The handover took place at the Agro-Investment Corporation on Spanish Town Road in Kingston.
As Jamaica’s chief agricultural extension and rural development agency, RADA is gearing up to offer a more comprehensive suite of services to farmers across the island.
Simpson said that widened mandate is aligned with the restructuring and rebranding of the organisation, established in 1900. The agency is a statutory body operating under the aegis of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.
Meanwhile, Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Pearnel Charles Jr charged all farmers to register with RADA in order to benefit from the discounted tractor services on offer.
“The tractor services will be provided to RADA-registered farmers at a discounted price compared to that of the private market rate. That means if you are not registered, but you are a farmer, go and take the little bit of time to register yourself,” said Charles, adding that the data enabled more precise forecasting by the ministry ... .”
He challenged farmers to maximise the efficiencies facilitated by innovation but to preserve the equipment and tools.
“We don’t want to get the tractors and then in two months, three months they cannot be used. Every farmer that utilises any tractor should see it as their own, because you may want to use it again so that your operations will be improved, not just for one year. So we will ask and encourage that this equipment be seen as yours and be used as if it is yours,” the agriculture minister said.
The overall price tag, including detached equipment for ploughing, harrowing, furrowing, and bed shaping, was $90 million.
The six tractors cost approximately $49 million.
Citing the inflationary spike the Government had dodged, Simpson revealed that price of the tractors, at $8 million each, had jumped 63 per cent to $13 million since the Government paid for its shipment.
Meanwhile, Charles said that if the country is calling for farmers to produce more food with greater efficiency, the acquisition of state-of-the-art equipment was crucial to achieving those targets.
Comments