Agri ministry calls for private sector collaboration to increase citrus production

Alfred Barrett (2nd left), Jamaica Citrus Protection Officer Plant Quarantine, Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries (MICAF), discusses the different varieties of citrus available with (from left) Courtney Cole, Chief Technical Director for Special Projects, MICAF; Patricia Smikle, Horticulturist, Post Entry Quarantine and Dr. Peta-Gaye Chang, Chief Post Entry Officer, both of Bodles Research Station in St. Catherine at Bodles Citrus Day on March 2.

Chief Technical Director for Special Projects in the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries, Courtney Cole, is calling on the private sector to collaborate more with the Government in an effort to increase citrus production in Jamaica.
Speaking at Citrus Day 2018 on March 2, Cole said that while there is a demand for some 4.5 million boxes of citrus annually; Jamaica was producing fewer than 2 million boxes. This, he said, was due to capacity constraints at the Ministry’s budwood facility at Bodles where only an average of 24,000 budeyes is produced annually to nursery growers, producing 42,000 boxes of citrus.
The chief technical director said that due to the current shortage, these 42,000 boxes were fetching between $23m to $84m, depending on whether they were sold to factories or on the retail market.
“We urge our private sector partners to collaborate with us in establishing additional facilities to facilitate the much-needed increase in production of budeyes,” said Cole.

Citrus Day was organised by the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries’ Post Entry Quarantine and the Jamaica Citrus Protection Agency and was geared at increasing awareness amongst the public and nursery operators of the various varieties of citrus available in Jamaica, their flavours and uses, and how they can be incorporated into various foods.
The Post Entry Quarantine Unit maintains approximately 46 of these varieties in a clean state, regularly testing for the more common and problematic diseases that affect citrus.

In 2010, the citrus industry suffered a major decline in production after the detection of citrus greening disease, moving from an annual production of 128,241 tonnes in 2009 down to 74,217 tonnes in 2016.

Citrus, however, continues to play a major part in Jamaica’s economy, employing hundreds of persons all along the food chain from producers to consumers. It remains one of the most widely produced and exported fruit across the globe, and is consumed in a variety of ways, including fresh fruit, juices, and as enhancers and flavours in many foods.
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