Small farmers to begin benefitting from ganja industry

Alternative Development Programme for the small ganja farmers to produce for the legal trade
Jamaica Observer (Jamaica)
Tuesday, January 8, 2019

Prime Minister Andrew Holness says that the Alternative Development Programme (ADP), which will provide an avenue for small ganja farmers to benefit from the ganja industry, will start by March 2019. The programme aims to prevent and eliminate the illicit cultivation of ganja and channel the process through legal streams. The pilot, which will commence in Accompong, St Elizabeth and Orange Hill in Westmoreland, will involve the farming of ganja to provide raw material for processors. “It is a real fear that as that [ganja] industry emerges to become more corporatised, that the original ganja man, the original farmer, could very well be left out of the gains and the benefits, when you were the ones singing the praises and the benefits from how long,” Holness said.