Participants during the Workshop FAO/Chrishane Williams

Over the next years, climate change is expected to worsen improvements in food security and agricultural development.

In recent years famers and fishers have felt the crippling impacts of climate change on their livelihoods and food production. Jamaica’s food security and agricultural development are heavily dependent on the country’s capacity to respond to the impacts posed by climate change, which has led to the formation of several institutional plans and activities to assist in mitigating and adapting to these impacts. Fourteen agriculture and fisheries experts have now met to develop a new National Agriculture Disaster Risk Management (ADRM) Strategy and Plan during a workshop held from March 13-14, 2019 in Kingston, Jamaica.

The workshop engaged representatives from several divisions of the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries, the Rural Agricultural Development Authority, the National Environment and Planning Agency, Jamaica Agricultural Commodities Regulatory Authority, Jamaica 4H Clubs, Newport Fersan and Carib Agro-Distributors Ltd. The group examined ways of strengthening institutional capacities for an agro-environmental approach to disaster resilience in Jamaica by validating a newly proposed institutional framework for ADRM. Recommendations on the goals, strategies and actions for the development of a new national ADRM strategy and plan were also discussed and priority issues based on the findings of an Institutional Capacity Assessment were identified. 

FAO’s Disaster Risk Management Consultant Mrs Karema Aikens-Mitchell remarked that the reality of climate change is one that pushes us to create solutions for adaptation and mitigation to its impacts on our agriculture and fisheries sector. She added that the workshop offered an opportunity to engage with stakeholders to re-design a framework, strategy and plan that ideally reflected linkages between disaster management, natural resource management and climate change adaptation to better protect our farmers, fishers and food production systems, based on present realities.

The new Institutional Framework, Strategy and Plan are being updated after 10 years and are expected to be in line with current international and regional agendas including the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the Sustainable Development Goals and CDEMA’s Comprehensive Disaster Management Strategy.

FAO’s support to building disaster resilience in Jamaica

Through the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Technical Cooperation Programme, a project was developed to improve technical and institutional capacities for disaster and climate risk management and sustainable agriculture in Jamaica, Guyana and Suriname. Following earlier national interventions in Jamaica, the project provided training in on-farm water management to the Yardley Chase Farmer’s Group in St. Elizabeth and is now validating the performance of disaster risk reduction good practices against local practices.

The workshop, which is being organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization, is a follow up to the project and supports calls from United Nations Member States to improve the measures for addressing vulnerabilities and development needs within Small Island Development States. These calls have been made at global fora such as the SAMOA Conference, FAO Conference High Level Event on FAO and SIDS, the Milan Inter-Ministerial Meeting on SIDS, and the Conference of Parties (COP) 21 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).