Jamaica might see a major move away from imported wheat to locally grown sweet potatoes. This goal, according to Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Pearnel Charles Jr, is part of the government's continued thrust to reduce the country's import bill while also ensuring national food security.
According to Charles Jr, discussions are being had with "big investors who are very interested" in the idea of replacing the approximately 176,000 tons of wheat imported into the country each year.
This year, the ministry's 'Grow Smart, Eat Smart' campaign, was launched, as a strategy to increase production and consumption of local produce. The initiative targets several priority areas, including crop production, climate-smart practices and technologies, access to finance, advancing and expanding insurance for farmers.
In the meantime, chief technical director in the agriculture and fisheries ministry, Orville Palmer, continued to tout sweet potatoes as the ideal substitute for wheat. Palmer argued that sweet potato "is far more nutritious" and pointed out that three crops can be produced each year.
He noted that if 176,000 tons of imported wheat go into making flour, that translates to about 132,000 tons of flour in Jamaica. "Let's convert that into sweet potato – you're talking about [producing] 666,000 tons of sweet potatoes if you were to do 100 per cent substitution, which would be ideal [to replace wheat]," Palmer explained.
Source: jamaicaobserver.com