Burning Spear

With food prices skyrocketing globally and the Government having ended the subsidy on basic food items that had shielded consumers, especially those at the lowest rungs of the economic ladder, in the earlier part of the year, the agriculture minister has stressed what we all should know.

We have to plant some food, Dr Christopher Tufton says.

To this end, Labour Day 2008 will focus on food planting, largely through a seed distribution project which will be done in schools. Then there are some backyard farming kits, prepared by the Rural Agriculture Development Authority to be given to some households in Spanish Town and Portmore, St Catherine.

This is all well and good, but the powers that be would be well advised to turn to the music makers (like almost everyone else, who needs to reach the Jamaican people in the widest sense) to send their message across. For within all the hype, all the tough talk and the attention to women, there is a thread of agricultural interest.

And we are not talking only about planting marijuana, although there is plenty of that in Jamaican song.

There are the obvious ones, like Mickey Spice and Louie Culture singing that all should "grab yu lass an come", which the Government would be well advised to use. But one that really interests me is way down in one of Sizzla's really big songs, No Time to Gaze, when he says "I till de de dirt den wha mek dem a scorn". This covers not only the man getting into the soil himself, but also the aversion so many have towards farming.