Agriculture could soon account for 10% of Jamaica's GDP

 

Agriculture is projected to account for 10 per cent of Jamaica's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the short to medium term.

 

Agriculture Minister Floyd Green says the impact of the sector on GDP would be greater reflected if agriculture-related manufacturing processes were categorised under the industry. 

 

"Over the last 10 or so years, we've been moving from contributing about 5% of GDP to now 8.3%, and we do expect to hit 10% in another two years or so. And I say that understanding that we do a very unfortunate thing in Jamaica where we disaggregate agriculture from agricultural manufacturers, and we count manufacturing separately from agriculture. So when you really count CB [Group], which is an agricultural company on our contributions to GDP, we would be far more than 8.3%," he noted. 

 

Mr. Green said the poultry industry contributes to more than 80 per cent of the local agricultural GDP.

 

In local data collecting, manufacturing is a stand alone category, and is not disaggregated to show agro-processing and other agriculture related manufacturing.