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As meteorologists across the Caribbean sound the alarm over looming higher temperatures and heightened drought risk driven by the approaching El Niño weather pattern, Jamaica’s government has moved proactively to safeguard agricultural production and water access with a $145 million investment in upgraded water capture infrastructure islandwide. The landmark investment was announced Wednesday by Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining Floyd Green during his address to the House of Representatives, as part of the ongoing 2026/27 Sectoral Debate.

Green outlined that the Rural Agricultural Development Authority will ramp up its comprehensive drought mitigation strategy throughout the upcoming fiscal year, anchored by a large-scale program to construct a network of new small-format water catchment ponds across high-risk regions. “In high-production agricultural zones, we’re going to be building out water catchment ponds and we’re targeting those parishes that are historically prone to drought,” Green told legislators.

Beyond the construction of new capture infrastructure, the government will deploy emergency water trucking to vulnerable communities facing acute shortages when necessary. To bolster this emergency response capacity, the Ministry of Agriculture will acquire two additional water trucks for the National Irrigation Commission, specifically to serve underserved rural areas that have long lacked reliable drought relief.

The ministry will also carry out systematic rehabilitation of existing aging catchment ponds and storage tanks, while distributing plastic and grass mulch to farmers across affected regions. Green emphasized that adapting agricultural practices is as critical as building new infrastructure, noting that changing planting and soil management techniques to retain soil moisture is a core component of the strategy. Farmers in St Elizabeth, Jamaica’s key agricultural breadbasket parish that has endured repeated severe water shortages over decades, have already adopted mulching as a proven method to keep crops viable through extended dry periods.

Additional support for impacted producers includes targeted distribution of drip irrigation systems and individual water storage tanks, Green confirmed. These on-the-ground interventions have already begun rolling out across the island, and every Member of Parliament will receive a dedicated budget allocation to support local farmers in preparing for the approaching dry conditions. “We want to start now before it is too late,” Green stressed, underscoring the government’s commitment to proactive rather than reactive drought response.

Addressing long-term water security beyond the immediate El Niño threat, Green noted that mitigating the upcoming drought is only one piece of the island’s water challenge. “Where will the water of the future come from? Yes, we’re in the land of wood and water, but water is always in demand and that is why the National Irrigation Commission will start this year to truly explore non-traditional water sources,” he said. Long-term resilience efforts will include feasibility and development work for desalination facilities to supply reliable irrigation water for agricultural producers, alongside research and deployment of grey water recycling technologies that can repurpose wastewater for agricultural use.

In broader irrigation expansion plans, the government has targeted 6,000 hectares of new arable land to be brought under formal irrigation coverage over the next five years. When complete, this expansion will push the share of Jamaica’s arable land with access to controlled irrigation water past 50%. Flagship projects include the 4,000-hectare Pedro Plains Irrigation Expansion System, paired with four smaller local projects that will bring an additional 2,000 hectares of farmland online with reliable water access.

Green made specific timeline commitments to farming communities, confirming that irrigation access for producers in Essex Valley will be activated before the end of 2026. The Hamity Hall and Bridge Pen irrigation systems are on track to go live by the second quarter of 2027, he added. “We’re building a better Jamaica through irrigation,” Green concluded in his address.

The announcement comes alongside on-the-ground evidence of past drought stress, captured in file photos showing tomato and scotch bonnet pepper crops affected by drought-like conditions in St Ann’s Walkerswood region, highlighting the urgent need for the new mitigation measures.

A high-stakes legal battle has erupted over the upcoming leadership election for the Accompong Maroon community in Jamaica’s St Elizabeth parish, as a former leader and potential candidate has petitioned the country’s Supreme Court to halt the vote and remove sitting colonel Richard Currie from office. Lawyers representing Meredith Rowe, one of multiple contenders challenging the planned May 22 election, filed an injunction request last week with the Supreme Court in Kingston, seeking to immediately block Currie from continuing to exercise the powers of the community’s top leadership post.

The legal challenge comes after Currie formally announced the election timeline earlier this month, setting nomination day for this Friday—one week ahead of the scheduled vote. Rowe’s tenure as colonel officially ended on February 18, when Currie’s elected term was also set to expire, triggering the requirement for a new leadership contest. But Rowe and other opposing candidates argue that Currie has overstepped his authority by unilaterally setting the terms of the election without following longstanding community customs and including key stakeholders in the process.

In the court documents, Rowe outlines a series of demands beyond halting the current election and removing Currie from office. The former colonel is calling for the immediate appointment of an interim Maroon council, the creation of an independent election oversight body, the finalization of a verified list of eligible voters, and a court order voiding all official actions Currie has taken since his term expired. Additionally, Rowe is asking the court to compel Currie to follow longstanding tradition by requiring all potential candidates to jointly select two representatives to sit on the independent election council, and to surrender all community assets, funds, and official documents in his possession to a local justice of the peace or the nearest police station pending a resolution to the dispute.

Opposition candidates have raised multiple red flags about the fairness of the election as currently structured. Their primary complaint is that the Electoral Office of Jamaica, which has overseen Accompong’s leadership elections since the 1950s, will not be participating in the upcoming vote—an absence that Rowe says makes it impossible to guarantee a free and fair process. Critics also point to the incomplete voter roll, which remains undrafted just days before nomination day, as evidence that the process has been rushed to benefit Currie.

The most divisive point of contention is Currie’s claim that the election is being held under the terms of a ratified, gazetted Maroon constitution that introduces new candidacy requirements, including a three-year continuous residency rule for colonel candidates. Rowe, one of two surviving former colonels of the community, says he and the other living former leader were never consulted on the proposed constitution, and that Accompong has never operated under a formal written constitution in its history. He further argues that several potential candidates who do not currently meet the three-year residency requirement—while maintaining deep family and property ties to the community—are being unfairly locked out of the race by the new rule.

In comments to Nationwide News Network, Currie defended his actions, insisting that the constitution is legally recognized and the election process adheres to its stipulations. But Rowe has dismissed these claims, launching a scathing personal attack on Currie’s legitimacy as a leader of the Accompong Maroons. Rowe claims Currie was not born, raised, or educated in Accompong, and that his connection to Maroon heritage is questionable, noting that his grandmother came from Jamaica’s Manchester parish.

“No one man should be allowed to come and violate every aspect of our culture, customs and traditions,” Rowe said in a statement to reporters. “We are seriously upset and we are going to fight it tooth and nail through the legal channel to block him and when that is done he has to leave Accompong because he is not belonging to there.” Rowe is not alone in his opposition: another anonymous potential candidate confirmed to the Jamaica Observer that at least five contenders are united in the legal fight to stop Currie’s planned election, vowing to use all legal avenues to block a process they call rigged in Currie’s favor.

Questions surrounding the Jamaica Ethics Committee’s handling of the exemption controversy involving St Andrew East Central Member of Parliament Dennis Gordon persisted through Wednesday’s sitting, as committee chair Marlene Malahoo Forte confirmed neither she nor the committee clerk had received the widely referenced legal opinion that argues the body lacks jurisdiction to recall Gordon.

The ongoing dispute centers on a growing partisan and constitutional debate over whether the committee overstepped its institutional authority when it moved to summon Gordon for additional questioning, after Jamaica’s House of Representatives already approved the committee’s initial recommendation on Gordon’s exemption application. Throughout this process, opposition lawmakers have repeatedly cited an external legal opinion to back their claim that the committee no longer has standing to investigate the matter, but Malahoo Forte confirmed Wednesday that neither she nor the committee’s top administrative official have ever received a formal copy of the document.

“I thought it was not proper to get the opinion on the record in the way that the attempt was made. Because there is a proper way to do it, and my view was that it was not done properly, and to date, I still do not have the opinion, I don’t know its content, and I’m advised by the committee clerk that he doesn’t have it either,” Malahoo Forte told the committee during the session. She also firmly pushed back against claims that she had privately reviewed the undisclosed opinion or allowed it to influence the committee’s deliberative process.

Clarity on the origin of the opinions emerged later in the sitting, when Senior Legislative Counsel Tiffany Stewart addressed the committee to detail how the documents were requested and distributed. “For the purposes of clarity solely and for the avoidance of any form of doubt or misinterpretation, the legal opinion was sought by the leader of opposition business through the Office of the Clerk and not directly from the Legislative Council Department. Additionally, a request was made for a supplemental legal opinion on April 30th through the Office of the Clerk on the same matter and that was provided, I think, on May 1st to the leader of opposition business,” Stewart explained.

The core legal argument advanced by Opposition members holds that once the full House of Representatives approved the Ethics Committee’s original recommendation on Gordon’s exemption application, the matter is officially closed — a legal doctrine known as functus officio, meaning the body has exhausted its authority over the case. This position was forcefully laid out by Opposition member Anthony Hylton during Wednesday’s debate, who emphasized that the dispute is not a partisan political fight, but a technical matter rooted in constitutional governance.

As the discussion grew more tense, Hylton warned the committee that it risks acting outside its lawful bounds unless clear constraints are placed on its authority and investigative scope. “We need to have the scope properly defined so that we don’t go wandering and thrashing about into matters that properly does not concern this committee… if we don’t have limits, we can find ourselves in deep waters,” he cautioned.

Malahoo Forte pushed back against this framing, arguing that the committee has a clear mandate to investigate new questions that have emerged about the accuracy of information Gordon submitted during the initial exemption application process. “The committee’s recommendation was based on the information provided by the member. The accuracy of that information on which the committee’s recommendation was grounded was subsequently brought into question, and the committee sought to obtain clarification on the information which led to the member being summoned to reappear before the committee,” she explained.

Beyond the narrow dispute over Gordon’s case, Wednesday’s sitting expanded into a broader debate over the appropriate scope of parliamentary scrutiny for elected officials. Malahoo Forte suggested that the Ethics Committee may need to undertake a full overhaul of its procedures for processing exemption motions moving forward, noting that public expectations for elected official accountability have shifted dramatically in recent years.

“Today, the people of Jamaica are demanding more of their parliamentarians with all due respect… And when a member of parliament has a contract with the Government of Jamaica on account of the public service, and issues arise, the people want to know. If you think that because in the past, a member may just be called upon to say this is it, and it is acted on, that may not be the case going forward… I believe we are under a duty to find out what is the extent of the contract and how will any conflict of interest be resolved in the public interest,” Malahoo Forte added. Hylton reaffirmed his position at the close of the sitting, restating that the matter is legally closed following the House’s vote on the original recommendation.