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Not an easy road: Farming in Jamaica by Jodi Brown-Lindo
Monday, 19 May 2008
As we look at the rising cost of food, we go to the source....the breadbasket of St. Elizabeth to hear how farmers feel about the local farming sector and whether we have what it takes to feed ourselves.
Country sides filled with lush green vegetation, arable lands for miles.......just turn anywhere outside of the corporate area and this description could fit most parishes.
Faced with a possible food crisis these are seen as the strong foundations needed to enhance a farming sector in order to enable us to feed ourselves....... but is that enough?
Well the way the farmers tell the story ...it's not.
More farmers than buyers
We journeyed to the bread basket of St. Elizabeth where Farmers say they have been planting more than enough but have been plagued with problems and no markets to sell their produce.
Under a mango tree in Hounslow we caught up with Donald Bent, a farmer for 20 years.
"Just about anything that farmers plant now is a problem...whether is not tomato, is melon, when its not melon, its carrot, when its not carrot, its peppers," said Mr. Bent.
Mr. Bent currently farms two acres of cash crops mainly peanut, pumpkin, potatoes and some cassava.
A slender man in his early forties he was eager to tell his story.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Mr. Bent said at many intervals in his career he became very excited at the prospects of planting more and on a few occasions he did. But faced with drought and lack of a reliable water supply, those prospects were soon dimmed.
"I am not going to let that big talk on radio swell my head. I've tried expanding already and hear a lot of the big talk on radio and nothing,"</span>
"I have lost a lot. The other day I planted some pumpkin and corn and they have not moved," he said.
Cassava, anyone?
Although he currently plants cassava he does not believe it is an investment most farmers would want to take on.
"The younger farmers are not into cassava, they want a faster crop because it takes a year for it to mature.
And the market is another thing because the one little factory in Goshen closed down so I don't know where we are going to sell it," he said.
Burnette Buchanan agrees. He sees expanding and diversifying as a good idea but not into cassava!
"I always have a little cassava but I never planned to go into it all the way because I find progress in what I am planting already," said Mr. Buchanan.
For Wade Graham, the idea is not a feasible one, especially for farmers who depend on crops that have a quick turn around.
"It takes too long for it to turn around, you will die of hunger. One year and one day to scrape and another day to wring and grater, we can't bother with that," said Mr. Graham.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Trevor Salmon lives in Santa Cruz but farms in Hounslow.
In his early sixties he lamented that all this could have been prevented if the food farm initiative which had been launched in the 1970's had been maintained.
He believes that at the root of the problem in getting farmers to plant more is land.
He says farmers are forced to lease properties as most of the arable lands have been sold to persons who are not interested in farming.
"A lot of people who are not interested in farming get these lands and we have to lease it or sublease it from them," he said. </span>
Too much of one thing
We then caught up with Hopelyn Salmon - the lone female farmer we came upon in Hounslow- as she mixed pesticide to spray her callaloo and pumpkin plot.
For her one of the greatest problems with marketing lies with farmers themselves.
"Many of the farmers go into the same crop so you have a glut. I would say they could send some more extension officers around and streamline the crops,"
"They could come and say ‘you can plant this, we have a market for that kind of crop' and you go to the next man and say ‘you plant that I have a certain amount of market for that' so you know that when you put in all your effort there is a market there to take it from you,"
Despite the challenges the farmers say they are willing to go on......but only if the government can prove it is serious about the sector.
<span style="font-weight: bold">"For me to really plant more I would have to get more water and see the market open up but most times they just come and tell us to plant and when you plant, it waste," she said.
"Farmers cannot find a market for themselves. If these crops come in right now and we don't have any market there should be a proper place like a cold storage where the government takes it off you and keeps it until they need it or until they find a market for it," she continued.</span>
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Monday, 19 May 2008
As we look at the rising cost of food, we go to the source....the breadbasket of St. Elizabeth to hear how farmers feel about the local farming sector and whether we have what it takes to feed ourselves.
Country sides filled with lush green vegetation, arable lands for miles.......just turn anywhere outside of the corporate area and this description could fit most parishes.
Faced with a possible food crisis these are seen as the strong foundations needed to enhance a farming sector in order to enable us to feed ourselves....... but is that enough?
Well the way the farmers tell the story ...it's not.
More farmers than buyers
We journeyed to the bread basket of St. Elizabeth where Farmers say they have been planting more than enough but have been plagued with problems and no markets to sell their produce.
Under a mango tree in Hounslow we caught up with Donald Bent, a farmer for 20 years.
"Just about anything that farmers plant now is a problem...whether is not tomato, is melon, when its not melon, its carrot, when its not carrot, its peppers," said Mr. Bent.
Mr. Bent currently farms two acres of cash crops mainly peanut, pumpkin, potatoes and some cassava.
A slender man in his early forties he was eager to tell his story.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Mr. Bent said at many intervals in his career he became very excited at the prospects of planting more and on a few occasions he did. But faced with drought and lack of a reliable water supply, those prospects were soon dimmed.
"I am not going to let that big talk on radio swell my head. I've tried expanding already and hear a lot of the big talk on radio and nothing,"</span>
"I have lost a lot. The other day I planted some pumpkin and corn and they have not moved," he said.
Cassava, anyone?
Although he currently plants cassava he does not believe it is an investment most farmers would want to take on.
"The younger farmers are not into cassava, they want a faster crop because it takes a year for it to mature.
And the market is another thing because the one little factory in Goshen closed down so I don't know where we are going to sell it," he said.
Burnette Buchanan agrees. He sees expanding and diversifying as a good idea but not into cassava!
"I always have a little cassava but I never planned to go into it all the way because I find progress in what I am planting already," said Mr. Buchanan.
For Wade Graham, the idea is not a feasible one, especially for farmers who depend on crops that have a quick turn around.
"It takes too long for it to turn around, you will die of hunger. One year and one day to scrape and another day to wring and grater, we can't bother with that," said Mr. Graham.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Trevor Salmon lives in Santa Cruz but farms in Hounslow.
In his early sixties he lamented that all this could have been prevented if the food farm initiative which had been launched in the 1970's had been maintained.
He believes that at the root of the problem in getting farmers to plant more is land.
He says farmers are forced to lease properties as most of the arable lands have been sold to persons who are not interested in farming.
"A lot of people who are not interested in farming get these lands and we have to lease it or sublease it from them," he said. </span>
Too much of one thing
We then caught up with Hopelyn Salmon - the lone female farmer we came upon in Hounslow- as she mixed pesticide to spray her callaloo and pumpkin plot.
For her one of the greatest problems with marketing lies with farmers themselves.
"Many of the farmers go into the same crop so you have a glut. I would say they could send some more extension officers around and streamline the crops,"
"They could come and say ‘you can plant this, we have a market for that kind of crop' and you go to the next man and say ‘you plant that I have a certain amount of market for that' so you know that when you put in all your effort there is a market there to take it from you,"
Despite the challenges the farmers say they are willing to go on......but only if the government can prove it is serious about the sector.
<span style="font-weight: bold">"For me to really plant more I would have to get more water and see the market open up but most times they just come and tell us to plant and when you plant, it waste," she said.
"Farmers cannot find a market for themselves. If these crops come in right now and we don't have any market there should be a proper place like a cold storage where the government takes it off you and keeps it until they need it or until they find a market for it," she continued.</span>
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