Analysis of Agricultural Policies in Jamaica

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%).