The Editor, Sir:

At the town hall meeting in Mandeville on May 19, Prime Minister Golding responded to a question about growing corn locally for animal feed. He replied that it made no sense to restrict its import if the locally grown corn was going to cost more, as this would only drive up the price of chicken.

This same principle would apply to any form of foodstuff grown locally. What we need to do, to get the unit price down, is to increase the productivity of our agricultural sector. This will not happen until we deal with the fundamental problem, which is soil health.

I have been lobbying about this very important issue for some time now. In fact, I have even been described as the "lone voice in the wilderness" on this matter by none other than Prime Minister Golding in a letter to your paper in November 2000. But I am no longer on my own on this matter.

Perhaps you are not aware that the past secretary general of the UN, the illustrious Kofi A. Annan, is now the chairman of the Alliance for the Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), http://www.agraalliance.org/.

Notable phrase

From his speech at the launch of AGRA in June 2007, here are some notable phrases:

"Sub-Sahara Africa is the only region in the world where per capita food production has steadily declined."

"No country or region of significant size has been able to lift itself out of poverty without raising productivity in its agricultural sector."

"Our fight against poverty is directly linked to the health of the earth itself."

"In 2007, we will launch a programme to improve the health of Africa's soils, now the most depleted in the world."

If we substitute Sub-Sahara Africa with Caribbean/Jamaica, only the name would change; the story would be the same. What we need to do now is exactly what they in Africa now recognise the need for: improve the health of our farm lands.

I am, etc.,

MARK BROOKS

St Elizabeth