Jamaican Till I Die!

Jamaica’s Food Security and safety depends on our integrity, morality, self-respect, respect for others, personal responsibility and basic human decency. We are simply at the mercy of each other, especially since our food supply system lacks a standard nationwide process to protect us. Anything can be injected into the food supply at any stage of the process and we would not know. When it comes to food import we have no control, we gave all control to the exporting country and we are totally at their mercy to eat what they want us to eat. BRASÍLIA, Brazil (AFP)  – Salmonella steaks? Carcinogenic chemicals? Lying labels? Brazil, the world's biggest beef and poultry exporter, has been hit by stomach-churning allegations of corrupt practices in its meat industry. Police have halted exports by 21 meat processers suspected of bribing inspectors to issue them bogus health certificates for rotten meat. Brazil's rotten meat scandal: what we know Jamaica's food security a s...

When I was young my uncles use to call be both "infahma" (informer) and farmer:   I would tell my grandmother on my uncles every time I see them doing something they should not be doing, so "infahma" in Jamaican Patios was informer and At an early age I developed a love for farming, a loved for the soil. (farma)  My grandmother did not let the small plot of land around her house go to waste. She could not afford to and so she utilized as much of the land as she could to grow food and I was there every step of the way to help her. At the center of our farming world was the chickens and it was my job to make sure the chicken coop was cleaned, chickens watered, fed, eggs collected and fighting birds kept apart. This was a job I did with pride, except on one occasion when one of the hens laid her eggs under the house. It was my job to go under the house and collect these eggs but on that day both the hen and the roaster did not want that to happen. The hen ...

I fully support The Ministry of Agriculture’s Eat Jamaica Campaign, I have been fortunate not only to observe but to engage with people living in the English countryside and I continue to be amazed at how territorial they are about the things they consume, food mileage is very important to them.  A butcher or a local grocer would advertise with pride that the products they sell were not only produced locally but organic and with minimal environmental impact. The butcher in Devon County  would advertise that the beef on sale was Genuine Devon Beef from a farm only a few miles from the store and British certifications or seals placed on packages for all to see, to prove that the items was produced locally and pass British Standards. It comes as no surprise therefore that British agriculture satisfies 60 per cent of the food needs of the UK. If countries that are more economically stable and classified as First-World can set aside material needs and mak...