Author: Syranno Baines
Photo by: Rudolf Brown
Agriculture Minister Audley Shaw has signalled his intention to have hotels use more local produce to minimise the incidence of glut in the domestic agriculture sector.
Shaw was speaking yesterday at the launch of the 66th Denbigh Agricultural, Industrial and Food Show scheduled for August 4-6, 2018, at the Denbigh showgrounds in May Pen, Clarendon.
“Check the hotels on the north coast. The very thing that we have glut on right now, they have flown them in on planes coming with tourists to feed [them]. That is one thing, I can tell you, that’s on my radar. That has got to change,” said Shaw.
“In other countries like the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica, they have carved out an arrangement. They bring in the hotels but say, ‘Purchase from us locally’. So if they can do it, we can do it, too,” argued Shaw.
“We must have the courage of our convictions to make sure that we have those linkages. It can’t be [just] talking about linkages. It’s going to be acting about linkages from here going forward,” he continued.
Shaw earlier revealed that despite the adverse weather conditions that occurred late last year, domestic crop production for the first quarter of this year recorded growth of 2.1 per cent. Egg production also recorded considerable growth during the first quarter of this year, representing an 11.6 per cent increase over the comparative period last year.
