Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett is urging the private sector to invest in the highly successful Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee Festival (JBMCF) so as to truly reap the economic benefits of the ground-breaking event.
Bartlett said the Ministry of Tourism is moving toward handing over the event, which is the Caribbean’s only coffee festival, to private sector entrepreneurs within the next two years.
The sixth annual staging of the Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee Festival will be held at Newcastle, northeast of Kingston, on Saturday, March 25 and Bartlett called on the various coffee growing and product manufacturing entities to capitalize on the opportunity being given to them to take responsibility for the festival and develop it into a major international event.
The tourism minister said the authorities had carefully examined the concept of the festival and its potential for growth and earnings “and we want that to become an international event.
“I am challenging the investors to come on board now to invest in the coffee festival. We will market it through the Jamaica Tourist Board on our platform,” said Bartlett, expressing confidence that “we could be bringing thousands upon thousands of people annually for this coffee festival, and that’s what I want to see.
The JBMCF was conceptualized in 2018 as a key initiative of the Gastronomy Network of the Tourism Linkages Network, a division of the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF).
Bartlett said the government has invested an estimated J$100 million (One Jamaica dollar=US$0.008 cents) in the festival to date, and this year has earmarked another J$25 million.
He said with the event having been truncated over the last two years by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, “we are coming back with a bang this year, stronger, better, more exciting, more alluring and a more all-embracing coffee festival”.
Coffee is said to be the second most consumed liquid, next to water globally with the Jamaican brand enjoying pride of place among world brands.
“If we really tap into the value chain of coffee, we could create an entire economy around the product, and perhaps that’s an ambition that we should work towards.”
Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Pearnel Charles Jnr has also underscored the importance of partnership with the various stakeholders, welcoming the value-added products being produced by young farmers with coffee.
“So, there’s an exciting opportunity to have the intrinsic taste profile that is loved by so many discriminating connoisseurs across the world,” Charles said, adding that there is a global market for Jamaicans to tap into, “not just to contribute to our gross domestic product but to contribute to the lives of our farmers.”
CMC/
