Analysis of Agricultural Policies in Jamaica

Date issued
Jul 2017
The Government of Jamaica places agricultural development among its priorities and employs domestic policy measures andborder protection to support agriculture. This report provides a qualitative analysis of the alignment of agricultural policy programs in Jamaica with the goals and existing challenges of the sector, supplementing it with a quantitative evaluation of agricultural support. The analysis finds that agricultural policy uses a limited number of instruments and concentrates on only a few sub-sectors. A comparison of the trends in agricultural support demonstrates that Jamaica’s share of gross farm receipts originating from agricultural policy (34.9% in 2012-14) was higher than in most LAC countries. The share of support to general services in total support was among the lowest regionally (8.2%).