Jamaica supports climate smart agriculture - Clarke

KINGSTON (CMC):Jamaica's Agriculture and fisheries minister, Roger Clarke, says substantial new resources, ideas and new ways of doing business are needed to address the challenges of climate change in the region.

He told delegates to a two-day Caribbean Agro-Meteorological Initiative (CAMI) conference, ending here yesterday, that Jamaica promotes and supports "climate-smart agriculture" as one method of dealing with the situation.

He defined climate-smart agriculture as "agriculture that sustainably increases productivity, resilience, reduces/removes greenhouse gases, while enhancing the achievement of national food security and development goals.

"We have created a country concept document for the Climate Change Adaptation Fund, to achieve the goal of climate-smart agriculture by enhancing the resilience of the agricultural sector by improving water and land management in select communities," he added.

ESTABLISHING MICRO-DAM

He said the government intends establishing a micro-dam here as part of the initiatives under the project that will establish 50 rainwater harvesting and 60 small-scale gravity irrigation systems in selected communities across the island.

The conference here is being held under the theme 'Breaking New Ground in the Caribbean: Weather and Climate Serving Agriculture'.

The CAMI project, which began in 2009, is supported by 10 Caribbean countries.