Kerrett Bennett, a farmer from Suttons, located in North Central Clarendon, longs for the day when he can make a success of his farm, which is located in the hilly terrain of the community.
With two boys in high school and tasked with putting food on the table for his family, the challenges associated with running the farm are more than he can navigate, forcing him to do days’ work on a large-scale farm in the area.
“Mi a farmer, and haffi teck a dollar from yah suh (where he is employed) fi go sort out my farm. If you want a bag a fertiliser and at the same time you have woman and pickey, how you a guh manage? He complained to Freedom Come Rain.
Bennett, using the opportunity, sent a message to the government that more attention should be paid to small farmers who are suffering.
“Mi a try a ting, but it is very hard. On the hill, there is no river to get water. Mi want some tank or drip hose as there is no piped water in the area. When I plant crops, mi have a little pump whey mi lease, and more time it bruck down. Sometimes mi haffi borrow money fi fix it,” he explained.
He said a lot of times he doesn’t break even and has to turn to his relatives overseas for assistance. He is calling on the government to put in some proper water systems so farmers can see their way out.
“We feel cut off yah suh, like nobody nuh business wid wi,” he stressed.
Curtis Mills, who also works on a pepper farm in the community, said he too does “personal” farming, but drought is proving to be a problem, and unlike the farm to which he is employed, which has an expensive irrigation system set up, he said small-scale farmers do not have that luxury.
“I have to do it (farming) small because if I try to go big, then a would lose the crop because I wouldn’t have enough water to supply. The drought really holds me back and restricts me when a could be doing two or three acres. My capital diminishes because of the drought, and I cannot cultivate as much as I would,” he shared as he pointed out the disadvantage small-scale farmers have in comparison to those who can do it on a large scale.
For the big farmer who can afford an irrigation system, he said they can enjoy good sales in the dry period, while the same scale farmer who finally sees a good production during the rainy season loses big as there is a glut on the market and they are forced to sell really cheap.
“You are cultivating at a time when your efforts don’t really make sense. The only time you can grow the crops is when it caan meck nutten,” he noted.
Criticising the government agency, the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA), he asserts that the agency is not doing enough and is of the opinion that their help is always ‘one-sided’.
“Mi see them launch a programme where they educate certain people about the use of equipment, but when they educate you, they don’t give you the equipment, and when they give you the equipment, they don’t educate you. At the end of the day, the equipment stays there and is not being used,” he points out, as he said he has personally observed where farmers were given pumps and some irrigation and catchment systems that ended up not being utilised by the farmers as they were never educated on how to use them.
“So they have the system, they have the seedling, but they are unable to produce anything, and they don’t give them a professional to guide them to increase the yield,” he observed.
Mills, stressing the need for a broader and more wholistic community approach, said he would like to see the wheel reinvented as he thinks a lot of young people do not see farming as ‘sexy’. Instead, he noted that they see it as dirty, unclean, and for low-class people.
Agriculture, he informed can be a multibillion-dollar industry for farmers and the key to lifting them out of poverty in the community.
“I think that is one of the problems in Jamaica—the small men that have the dream don’t have the capital, and the big men that have the capital don’t care enough,” he stated.
Looking ahead, Mills said his goal is to have a group in his community come together and start a company to do large-scale farming. Confessing that it would take a lot of capital to have land cultivated and put into production, he said if accomplished, he is confident that in five years everyone would be smiling.
In the meantime, he would want farmers to have more assistance when it comes to ploughing the land, as presently there is just one tractor that is stationed at May Pen, and when needed, you have to pay your money and book it, but with many farmers in the community, it can take a long time to get around to you.
CCL