Editorial | Blue Mountain ganja

A week ago, this newspaper reported an interesting business development. A coffee farmer named Lloyd Tomlinson, it was revealed, had sold a stake in a recently established outfit, Marigold Limited, to a Canadian firm called Aphria.

The value of the transaction was not disclosed. But the deal, to us, has significance on several fronts. First, Jamaica is just beginning to seriously get its commercial ganja business off the ground, four decades after two pioneering Jamaican scientists, Manley West and Albert Lockhart, put on the market two drugs from the plant, Canasol and Amasol, for the treatment, respectively, of glaucoma and asthma.

Canada, having already emerged as a world leader in medical marijuana, has just made marijuana fully legal, including for recreational use. Marijuana businesses listed on Canadian bourses are worth billions of dollars. Indeed, Aphria, which last year reported profit of CDN$29.4 million, has assets of CDN$1.3 billion.

Aphria, according to Mr Tomlinson, will help to finance the development of five herb houses, which Marigold plans to establish in Jamaica, for which it already has conditional approval. These facilities will be supplied with ganja grown at a Tomlinson family farm at Bernard Lodge, on the plains of St Catherine. This farm is separate and distinct from the Tomlinson coffee farm in the Blue Mountains.

This tie-up, nonetheless, seems to raise interesting and, perhaps, significant possibilities.

The coffee grown in Jamaica's Blue Mountains, in the east of the island, has a reputation for being the best in the world. It commands premium prices. Surprisingly, though, the business seems to go in cycles - of either boom or bust. Now it is in bust.

At the start of this decade, Blue Mountain coffee was in the doldrums. Too little was being produced. The industry had been hit by disease, production inefficiencies and low prices. Then it got a new lease on life. New processors joined the industry and negotiated high prices from Japanese buyers, who purchase the bulk of the output, in a bid to boost production. Over a four-year period the price to farmers rose more than 400 per cent, peaking at J$12,000 a box (9.5 pounds).

But the price has since collapsed to around J$4,000, and sometimes less, per box. Japanese buyers say their inventories of Blue Mountain coffee are high. The problem is compounded by a general fall in coffee prices. Indeed, a Jamaican delegation recently returned from Japan without specific purchasing or pricing deals.

COFFEE STANDARDS

This newspaper has little doubt that the industry will rebound. There is no question, too, about the quality of Blue Mountain coffee, whose standards are ensured by its regulatory system of provenance, which lends to the mystique of the brand.

In a sense, it is similar to the mystique that there used to be around Jamaican sensimelia ganja and its association with the island's Rastafarian culture. That was before countries pulled ahead of Jamaica in the ganja business. It seems possible that the mystique enjoyed by Blue Mountain coffee could, with the appropriate marketing and systems of provenance, be developed around ganja grown in those mountains. The Cannabis Regulatory Authority would, in this regard, set, and police, the standards, including designating the regions where Blue Mountain ganja could be grown.

Of course, it would have to be ensured that marijuana production in Blue Mountains doesn't compromise coffee farming in the area, which would start with appropriate technical analyses and, ultimately, the direction of the market. Already, Jamaica has suffered brand theft with regard to Blue Mountain coffee. It could happen with ganja.