During the upcoming fiscal year, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries will pump millions of dollars into building out a fish hatchery in Jamaica, in an effort to grow the fisheries sector.

             Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Floyd Green, has given his commitment to spearhead this buildout, primarily through the ‘Promoting Community-based Climate Resilience in the Fisheries Sector Project’.

            He was speaking at an event on yesterday at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston, where members of the Ministry’s fisheries department and overseas consultants hosted a Stakeholder and Validation Consultation Session.

            “I think this Promoting Community-based Climate Resilience in the Fisheries Sector Project is tremendously important to all we want to do in fisheries. It’s also important to what we should have done in the fisheries sector,”

the Minister said. 

This buildout will be done in tandem with overseas consultants who took part in the meeting virtually.

            “We have been able to find high-quality consultancies that you could see not only the level of expertise but their passion about the areas that they’ve taken on,”

Mr Green shared

            “One of the things that we’ve been championing is that we definitely need to expand our hatchery and to modernise our hatchery,”

he added.

Mr Green emphasised that this has to be a priority for this year.  

“I’m happy that we have run a design, which, from the feedback in general, people agree with the design, agree with what has been put forward. Clearly, like everything else, additional things can be done,”

he said.

Minister Green said renewable energy will be added to the project, based on the consultations.

 Also to be included are a maintenance budget; training for youth through HEART/NSTA Trust and the College of Agriculture, Science and  Education (CASE); and species that work best for sustainability.