THE National Initiative to Create Employment (NICE) continues to provide employment opportunities in the agricultural sector, according to Government Information Service.
The Farm Labour Support Programme is a collaborative initiative of NICE; the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Production, Fisheries and Rural Development; and the National Skills Development Centre (NSDC).
The programme is designed to stimulate the agricultural sector through the use of specially trained and skilled personnel to work on dormant, inactive, or underdeveloped farms as well as farms that have been forced to close within the past six months or more.
According to a programme supervisor, Kishma Louis, her role as a supervisor is to ensure that effective communication takes place between the workers and the farmers, and to ensure effective time keeping, “because we pay our workers based on a time schedule. They work eight hours a day like every normal government worker and to ensure the smooth transition from one farm to another. “
Said Louis: “NSDC was the one in charge of selecting and screening and training the farm workers. They have their own database and also NICE contains a database. So they went through both their databases, called these individuals in, did a few counselling sessions with them and then a main group was selected. Further on more training was done and the group got smaller and smaller until we had the selected group”