Food Security

FOOD SECURITY:  Ensuring that everyone in our community has access to plenty of good quality, nutritious, and affordable food is a challenge that we wholeheartedly embrace.

Jamaica, like most countries in the region, has struggled economically, and specifically in the area of food production.  Farming in this region of the world "is often seen as a reminder of plantations and slavery," (NY Times) and therefore, in recent history Jamaica had embraced food imports to meet the food needs of her people.  Unfortunately, this has placed the country on the precipice of a crisis, as the cost of food imports have become a "billion-dollar threat to finances and health" (NY Times)."

It's a frustrating irony for Jamaica:  "a fertile land with the ability to produce an abundance of fruits and vegetables is increasingly reliant on cheap agricultural imports that drive the country's farmers out of business."  (Pulitzer Center)

The Government has communicated its' commitment to renewed national food security - and launched a slogan a decade ago "Grow what we eat, eat what we grow."  

RAISE has become part of the solution.  We partner with local men and women and provide the land, education, and partnership necessary for them to successfully feed their families AND contribute to the economic well-being of their nation!