Roger Clarke - file

The sudden passing of Agriculture Minister Roger Clarke, who reportedly suffered a heart attack yesterday while preparing to return home, after successful surgery at a Florida hospital to alleviate back pains caused by a pinched nerve, has left Jamaicans in shock.

Permanent secretary in the agriculture ministry, Donovan Stanberry, who was driving to Westmoreland to attend the official opening of a sorrel processing facility, told The Weekend Star that staff members were hard hit, especially since they had been anticipating that the minister would have stopped in at the Hope Gardens office.

disarray

"The feedback that I've had from the ministry is the whole place is in disarray because everybody has just been overcome and overwhelmed with grief," he shared.

Angella Bardowell, past president of the Jamaica Pig Farmers Association, was stunned. She said: "Is the first public official or person in a long while that I heard that had died and really felt sad because he had that impact on us as pig farmers, as members of the association and we really going to miss him."

Meanwhile, Grethel Sessing remembers the minister as a champion for banana farmers, pointing to his unrelenting advocacy to improve conditions for the industry.

"He did everything he could for the banana industry," Sessing, president of the All-Island Banana Growers Association (AIBGA), admitted.

"It's a loss also for the delegation," Paola Amadei, head of Delegation of the European Union to Jamaica told The WEEKEND Star yesterday.