Floyd Green, Jamaica’s Agriculture and Fisheries Minister, says the growth of Jamaica’s mango export program is expected to boost the volume of goods shipped to external markets this year.
Green spoke with JIS News after seeing off a shipment of some 1,100 boxes of East Indian and St. Julian mangoes, totalling over 5 tons, to the US from the Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay on April 30.
“We are very happy to see the growth of the program, as we are doing over 1,000 boxes of mangoes to the United States. We have [advanced significantly] from when we had only two registered farmers to now having over 18 farmers [who] are registered. Plus, we had only one registered exporter and now we have nine exporters,” Green told jis.gov.jm, adding that “we are looking to see tremendous growth this season.”
The shipment is the first to that country for 2021 and the second since the start of the year, following the exportation of over 4 tons of the fruit to the UK in April. Jamaica resumed exporting mangoes to the US in 2019, shipping some 8,15 tons, after being out of that market since 1999.
Completion of hot-water treatment plant planned for 2021
Green says he is confident that the construction of a hot-water treatment plant, which is slated to be completed during the current financial year, will help to open more doors for Jamaica in the mango-export market.
“The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has just approved Jamaica to construct a hot-water treatment plant,” said Green. “What we expect is that through public-private partnership, we will construct that plant within this financial year, so that by next mango season, we should be doing more of the process here in Jamaica, and that will really open up mango exportation into the United States to a lot more mango farmers.
According to jamaica-gleaner.com, Green hopes that the growth of Jamaica’s mango-export program should result in an increase in this year’s overall export output.
Photo source: Opm.gov.jm