Jamaica’s Prime Minister Wants Long-Term Supply Contracts for Farmers
JAMAICA · AGRICULTURE
Key Facts
- —The country Jamaica, the Caribbean’s third-largest island, relies heavily on tourism and is still rebuilding farms hit by a 2025 hurricane.
- —Why it matters The Caribbean imports more than 60 percent of the food it eats, a steady drain on foreign currency.
- —What happened On Sunday 27 September, Prime Minister Andrew Holness urged a system of long-term supply contracts between farmers and buyers.
- —The damage Hurricane Melissa did about J$39 billion (US$246 million) of damage to farming, the agriculture minister says.
- —What it means for you Hotel guests could see more Jamaican produce on menus, and farm projects are being offered to investors this week.
- —Still open Holness named no contract model, budget or timetable, and who carries the risk is not known.
Jamaica’s prime minister, Andrew Holness, wants government and business to build a system of long-term supply contracts for the island’s farmers. He made the call on Sunday 27 September at a regional farm conference in Trelawny, on the north coast.
His argument is that farmers who know a buyer will take their crop can borrow, invest and grow more. The idea is not new, and the hard questions of who signs and at what price remain open.
What Holness said in Trelawny
Holness gave the opening keynote at the 20th Caribbean Week of Agriculture, held under CARICOM, the Caribbean Community trade bloc. The meeting of farm ministers, officials and investors runs until Friday 2 October, with more than 650 delegates, the Jamaica Gleaner reported.
“We tend to see agriculture as a short-term endeavour that is not bankable,” Holness said, according to the Jamaica Information Service. That is the government’s news agency, and it reported his call for supply contracts on 28 September.
He said the state must be “an instrumental partner alongside the private sector” in building such a system. In such a system, “farmers can invest with the security of knowing there is a market for their products,” he said.
Private investment should also tie farmers more closely to processors, distributors and retailers, he said. He also pointed to tourism as a market, and to red tape as a brake on investment.
Why a contract matters to a farmer
A farmer who plants without a buyer is taking a bet on the weather and on the market at once. A bank looking at that farmer’s loan request sees the same two risks.
A signed order turns a future harvest into income a lender can count on. That is the logic behind Holness’s remark that farming is too often treated as a short-term business.
Agriculture Minister Floyd Green gave a recent example at the same opening, the Gleaner reported. After Hurricane Melissa, he said, markets swung from severe shortages to periods of oversupply, which he called a structural weakness.
The hurricane and the drought behind the push
Hurricane Melissa, a Category 5 storm, struck Jamaica in October 2025. Holness said farmers lost crops, livestock, equipment and infrastructure, while rural roads and irrigation were damaged, the Jamaica Observer reported.
Green put farm damage at about J$39 billion (US$246 million), at 158.29 Jamaican dollars to the US dollar on 29 September. That is about a tenth of what Jamaica earned from tourism in the first eight months of 2026.
Holness said rebuilding should not simply replace what was lost. “We must use the reconstruction process to modernise our agriculture sector,” he told delegates.
Water is the other pressure, and Holness said much of the region is in an intense drought. Green said about 15 percent of Jamaica’s arable land had irrigation a decade ago, and 30 percent has it now.
He expects more than half within five years, the Observer reported on 28 September. Holness linked that goal to three government-funded agro-parks and the Pedro Plains irrigation scheme.
Hotels are the buyers the government has in mind
The clearest customer is tourism, which Holness said creates substantial demand for produce, seafood and processed food. On Thursday 10 September, Tova Hamilton, a minister of state for tourism, spoke at a food security conference in St Ann.
She said local produce “must always be the first choice” for hotels and restaurants. The aim is to turn steady hotel demand into long-term commercial contracts under a plan the tourism ministry calls Tourism 3.0.
Some of the tools already exist. An online exchange called ALEX, the Agricultural Linkages Exchange, links more than 2,000 farmers with resort kitchens, Hamilton said.
Hamilton said the exchange moved close to 3 million kilograms of produce in 2024, a figure that could not be independently confirmed. Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett told parliament in June that it had sold 2.57 million kilograms, without naming a period.
Fewer visitors this year
The buyer side has weakened since the hurricane, and Bartlett said about 30 percent of hotel rooms were still out of service. On Wednesday 2 September, he put visitors at 2.34 million by 31 August, down 17 percent year on year.
Tourism earnings over the same period were US$2.5 billion, down 18 percent, he said. That works out to an average of a little over US$1,000 per visitor.
What the opposition and farmers have said
The opposition People’s National Party (PNP), which sits on the centre-left, has pressed the government over high airfares and falling arrivals. Andrea Purkiss, its tourism spokesperson, said stopover arrivals fell 23.5 percent to 1.13 million in the first half of 2026.
She asked the government to say how it would restore cheaper flights, the Gleaner reported on 1 September. Fewer guests mean smaller hotel orders, and Holness himself said Caribbean farming cannot rely only on local and tourist markets.
Holness, of the centre-right Jamaica Labour Party, made a similar call in February 2025 at a hotel groundbreaking in Hanover. If persuasion failed, he said then, the government would “have to go further,” the Observer reported in April 2025.
Owen Dobson, president of the Jamaica Agricultural Society, a national farmers’ group, backed supply contracts at the time. He said execution was everything, warning that middlemen who do not farm could win contracts and resell to hotels.
Robin Russell, then president of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association, also supported it. He said rates and contract terms still had to be worked out, as did what hotels could source locally.
Red tape and the regional picture
Holness also said slow import rules for seeds, livestock and farm equipment hold back investors, the Gleaner and the Observer both reported. His complaint was about speed rather than rules: governments must be “speedier, faster, more strategic in how we regulate.”
Wendell Samuel, CARICOM’s assistant secretary-general, said the region imports more than 60 percent of its food, some members up to 80 percent. He put the food import bill for 2018 to 2020 at about US$13.7 billion, some 15 percent of regional output.
CARICOM’s goal, known as Vision 25 by 25, is to cut that bill by a quarter, now by 2030. Samuel said regional food output rose about 24 percent between 2022 and 2024.
Green used the same stage to call for a regional blended-finance fund, mixing public and private money for small farmers. He also called for cheaper, easier shipping between islands, saying the region cannot feed itself if food cannot move affordably.
What comes next
The conference runs until Friday 2 October, and the Jamaica Agro-Investment Corporation, a government agency, is presenting farm projects to investors there. Green said the real test of the week will be what follows it.
The speech does not oblige any hotel, supermarket or processor to sign anything. It also does not change food prices for residents or visitors in the short run.
What is not known is how supply contracts would be priced, and who would carry the risk if a harvest fails. The opposition’s view of the new proposal is also not yet known.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Caribbean Week of Agriculture?
It is a regional farm conference held under CARICOM, the Caribbean Community trade bloc. The 20th edition runs from 27 September to 2 October 2026 in Trelawny, Jamaica. Its theme is “The New FACE of Caribbean Food Systems.”
What is a long-term supply contract?
It is a deal in which a buyer, such as a hotel or food processor, agrees in advance to take set amounts of a crop. The deal can run for a season or several years, and the farmer can use it to support a bank loan.
Will this change what tourists eat in Jamaica?
Not immediately, because no new rule obliges hotels to buy local. The government wants resorts to buy more Jamaican produce, and the ALEX exchange links more than 2,000 farmers with hotel kitchens.
How badly did Hurricane Melissa hurt Jamaica’s farms?
The agriculture minister, Floyd Green, puts the damage at about J$39 billion (US$246 million). In December 2025 he cited a higher World Bank estimate of J$60 billion (US$379 million). Farmers lost crops, livestock and equipment, and rural roads and irrigation systems were damaged.
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