Agriculture Ministry to distribute soil testing kits in early 2025 – says Green

The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining is expected to begin distributing soil testing kits within the first quarter of 2025.

The announcement was made by Agriculture Minister, Hon. Floyd Green, at the World Soil Day Training and Exposition at the St. Elizabeth Technical High School in Santa Cruz, St. Elizabeth, on Thursday, December 5, 2024.
Minister Green said the kits are already in procurement.

“We are starting with 100 kits and what we will do is target some of our extension officers and also some of our farming groups in those highly productive areas,” he outlined.

The agriculture minister also shared that the Ministry will be working with stakeholders to promote and support the use of technology in agriculture.

“We are now working with the FAO on a programme that will do smart monitoring of our soils. So, we are going to be establishing some smart systems that we will put in our highly productive areas that you can monitor using your phones,” Green explained.

He added that this smart system will provide real-time updates that farmers will have “at their fingertips” via an app on their mobile phones. He said the Ministry will be rolling out these kits in open fields and greenhouses.

Minister Green also spoke to the significance of the two-day Climate Smart Agriculture Compliance (C-SAC) Tool Training, a collaborative effort between the Ministry’s Agricultural Land Management Division and the Ministry of Local Government and Community Development.

He said the training, which is provided to extension officers of various agencies, is critical in strengthening farmers’ capacity in sustainable land management practices.

“We want to ensure that our farmers are measuring their climate smart practices; are taking into account their soil health; are using that to guide their nutrition regimes, so that they are doing better farming practices, and more than that, getting higher yields and greater returns on their investments,” Green explained.

World Soil Day is celebrated annually on December 5. This year’s celebration places emphasis on sustainable soil management and the role of healthy soil in combating climate change.

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