Land, Capital, Labour, Enterprise: Four Ingredients for an Agricultural Revival

Many Jamaicans believe agriculture is finished. The economics suggests it has simply never been given all the ingredients it needs.

Dr. Peter Edwards
3 min read

Every successful industry combines four inputs that economists have long identified: land, capital, labour and entrepreneurship. In 2015, while writing about plans for a new crop industry in Jamaica, I asked a simple question. Have we ever applied all four properly to any of our main agricultural products? Sugar, bananas, coffee and coconut each rose and struggled. The honest answer tells us where an agricultural revival has to start.

Land

Land means the soil, water and natural resources above and below it. Are we managing soil health? Are we pricing water in a way that discourages waste? Are we using compost from municipal organic waste, or treated wastewater for irrigation? Are we protecting our best farmland from being converted to housing?

Capital

Capital is the money and equipment of production. Are farmers using efficient irrigation? Is solar power pumping water? Are packing houses, cold storage and processing plants maintained? Do farm roads connect to markets? Farming without these is farming with one hand tied.

Labour

Labour is people and what they know. Do we have enough trained agricultural technologists, and can they find work at home rather than migrate? Are we funding research on pests, disease and crop varieties suited to a hotter, drier climate? Are we drawing in engineers, food chemists and programmers, the skills modern agriculture needs?

Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship turns harvests into businesses: juices, dried fruit, flours, cosmetics, farm tours. Are we building value-added industries and new markets, the way other countries have built tourism around wine or coffee?

From no to yes

If we are honest, the answer to many of these questions is still “not yet.” That is the opportunity. Every “no” we turn into a “yes” means more jobs, less dependence on imported food and more resilience when drought or hurricanes strike. Many Jamaicans think agriculture is dead and that we should stick to hotels, remittances, bauxite and trading paper. We can do and be so much more.

Adapted from a 2015 commentary by Peter Edwards on building a science-based agricultural industry in Jamaica.