Headlines:
| Cane Association President to vie for JAS Presidency |
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| Friday, 03 July 2009 | |
 President of the All Island Cane Farmers Association Alan
Rickards, who is vying for president of the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS),
has pledged to refocus the organization.Mr. Rickards said if elected, his tenure would be marked by a return to the core functions of the JAS. He lamented that in recent times the leadership of the organization has been more interested in Public Relations than performance and gave an outline of the way forward. In particular he noted that the government subvention received yearly by the JAS can be better utilized. "We believe that the subvention from the government can be deployed more efficiently. We believe that the priorities in terms of the use of that funding must be to boost activities in the field and funding for the ABS branches. ABS is supposed to earn some funding from membership fees but God bless how much that is, "Therefore we need to boost the efficiencies in the field out of the income we now have. We need to move towards a situation in which first of all we boost that income by the activities that we undertake and move to a stage where the ABS can move towards autonomy," Mr. Rickards said. Mr. Rickards is being supported by Champion farmer in the hemisphere and candidate for first Vice President, Bob Miller and lone female member of the current JAS board and candidate for second Vice President, Maria Azan. The elections are due to be held at Denbigh on July 8 and will see over 400 delegates casting ballots. |