Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Hon. Floyd Green (centre) and INMED Caribbean Project Manager, Earle Ashley (right), peruse the INMED Aquaponics Handbook following a meeting at the Hope Gardens offices of the Ministry on February 2. At left is INMED Caribbean Business Consultant, Dr. Charlene Ashley.
Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Hon. Floyd Green, has hailed non-governmental organisation, INMED Caribbean for its role in providing small-scale producers and emerging entrepreneurs with sustainable income-generation opportunities through aquaponics, under its Increasing Access to Climate Smart Agriculture (IACA) Programme.
“I want to commend the INMED team for leading this charge. You have really been working hard to ensure that we engage in more innovative forms of agriculture and I think this drive towards aquaponics is significantly commendable,” he said.
The Minister was speaking at a meeting to discuss the programme and other related activities at the Hope Gardens offices of the Ministry on February 2.
Aquaponics is a climate-adaptive agriculture technique that combines aquaculture with hydroponics in a closed system that produces year-round crops at a rate roughly 10 times higher than traditionally farmed plots of equivalent size.
Aquaponics consumes up to 90 per cent less water, is scalable to any space, either urban or rural and is resilient to destructive climate change events.
Under IACA, which is being funded by the Inter-American Development Bank/Multilateral Investment Fund and the Caribbean Development Bank, small-scale farmers are being provided with access to financing and markets as well as training and technical assistance to enable them to start aquaponics enterprises.
The IACA Programme also fits within the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries efforts to grow the country’s aquaculture industry.
Meanwhile, Minister Green wants to see partnerships formed between INMED and agricultural schools to build out aquaponics systems and the inclusion of inner-city youths.
“With the support of our funding agencies or partners, we intend to focus on building out the institutional side of things through our schools, building out our young people involvement through our Jamaica 4-H Clubs and working more closely with our inner-cities as an alternative,” he said.