RADA: Farmers not taking advantage of training opportunities

Making the call, Land Management Officer at RADA, Kingston and St. Andrew, Robert Tulloch, said that, often, farmers do not take advantage of the training opportunities that exist.

He noted, for example, that “I have [been to] Westmoreland and have spent money on guest houses and hotels to train farmers and I did not train 15 farmers for three days.”

He was addressing a Roots and Tubers National Dialogue session under the Sustainable Agriculture in the Caribbean (SAC) project at Hotel Four Seasons in St. Andrew on Thursday (October 26).

Mr. Tulloch noted, further, that it is mostly female farmers who access training.

“Any time you go to train farmers, if you find 10 male farmers, you find a lot. What you will find is female farmers. The last set of training I have done, I have not trained seven male farmers, but I have seen more than 20 female farmers. There are more female farmers being trained in Jamaica currently, and statistics have shown that,” he noted.

Extension Education Specialist at RADA, Alicia Chambers, said the entity goes into communities to engage with the farmers before organising the training sessions.

“We visit the communities; we have one-on-one discussions with these farmers before we actually start to organise, implement or facilitate any sort of training activity,” Ms. Chambers said.

To ensure full attendance, she said that participants are allowed to bring along their children.

“Time, age and women not being able to participate is not an issue,” she said, while adding that the RADA has taken gender-sensitive approaches to its agricultural training and has also taken into consideration all vulnerable groups.

In addition to face-to-face meetings, RADA has been trying to reach farmers through online initiatives, Ms. Chambers said.

She is urging those who have benefited from the training sessions to put into practice what they have learned to ensure the sustainability of the process.

“After we do this type of capacity-building, farmers need to start owning the process,” she charged.

Stressing the need for them to “own their own development” she said that “the options are there for the farmers to tap in”.

SAC is a multi-country economic growth initiative funded by the Government of Canada through Global Affairs Canada (GAC) and is being implemented in Jamaica, Guyana, Dominica, Saint Lucia and Suriname.

The project aims to promote climate-resilient agriculture for equitable economic growth and increased economic prosperity of its target group, women and youth (both female and male) in more sustainable agricultural markets in the Caribbean.