Jamaicans’ appetite for foreign goods is draining the coffers of the United States dollars. But this is something that has happened before. History tells us that we have had this problem as far back as the 1970s. And a particular politician named Michael Manley had warned the nation that if it didn’t slash its import expenditure, the country would suffer dire consequences. He knew bauxite and alumina would deplete over time.
At the time, Michael argued that if we grow much of what we eat, we could slash our import expenditure by half. And so he reignited interest in agriculture and agribusiness. Manley started a land lease program and built fish farms all over the island. In addition, he started the Agricultural Marketing Corporation– a conduit through which small farmers would export their produce.
But all those programs failed, mainly because of foreign interference, and to a lesser extent, the Jamaican people preferred foreign produce. And the Government that succeeded the Manley Government abandoned the programs. But the chicken has finally come home to roost, and the Andrew Holness Government is urging Jamaicans to grow much of what they eat because our export deficit is widening.
Recently the Statistical Institute of Jamaica, STATIN, reported that from January to September 2022, Jamaica spent US $5.8 billion on imports, an increase of 37 percent compared to the corresponding period in 2021.
It said the drop in exports last year was primarily due to the 56 percent drop in exports from the mining and quarrying industry. Michael foresaw this day coming as far back as the 1970s.
And for the first nine months of 2022, the country only exported US $1.3 billion worth of goods, a 10-percent increase compared to the first nine months of 2021.
The Statistical Institute said domestic exports, which measure all goods grown, produced, extracted, or manufactured in Jamaica and which leave through Jamaican ports to a foreign destination, fell by 5 percent.