Peter Espeut | We need an agricultural revolution

With much of the world economies shutting down under the weight of the COVID-19 pandemic, weaknesses in Jamaica’s arrangements to feed its citizens have become more apparent. Too much of the food we eat is imported, because from colonial days, our masters made sure to sell us what they produced, rather than arrange for us to grow what we eat. Over time we have developed foreign tastes. We love bread even though we do not (cannot) grow wheat, and we love American apples despite the fact that our climate will not allow us to grow them.

My mother and grandmother told me that during World War II when shipping was scarce, we Jamaicans tun we han’ and make fashion, and we made the most of cassava and green banana, yam and dasheen. We may reach that place again.

I have been scandalised that, with the downturn in the sugar industry, no government since independence has identified any crop or set of crops to plant on the tens of thousands of acres of idle sugar lands. The only ideas put forward is to build houses of concrete.

In 1905, Henry William Griffith of Hodges, St Elizabeth, sold 3,000 pineapple suckers to a consortium in the Hawaiian Islands; during the 20th century, Hawaii grew Jamaican pineapples by the millions, such that all over the world, people think that pineapples come from Hawaii. They have also developed ancillary agro-industries, including juicing and canning plants, and have integrated pineapple products into their tourism industry.

While visiting relatives in Hawaii (Oahu), I have driven through miles and miles of pineapple farms. I suppose we didn’t grow pineapples on a large scale because in the 20th century, we put our agricultural land into the hands of foreign interests who were only interested in growing sugar cane; and our colonial masters would not allow us to develop ancillary agro-industries like sugar refining, and the manufacture of confectionery and chocolate bars.

Now that we have abandoned sugar production, why couldn’t we grow pineapples in the Class I Bernard Lodge soils instead of building houses?

LAZY MINDS

In 1946, Hawaiian interests, looking for a new crop to grow on their idle lands, decided to grow macadamia nuts (which they obtained from Australia), and they (and the mainland USA) became the world’s largest producers. Australian production only surpassed the USA in 1997. In 2015, South Africa became the world’s largest producer of macadamia nuts.

Why can’t we grow macadamia nuts on our idle lands? Or what about peanuts? We import so many hundreds of tons of agricultural commodities that we could grow on our own idle lands.

Where are our agricultural hawks – in government and private sector – who travel the world looking for crops we could grow here? Where are our entrepreneurs who could invest in agro-industry to add value to our primary products? We have too many people in power with lazy minds, who only think of margin-gathering: build some houses and make a profit. That is not going to develop Jamaica’s food security or provide employment for the coming generations, or lead to the economic growth that continues to elude us.

We have the brainpower to become an agricultural and agro-industrial powerhouse! Dr Thomas Phillip (T.P.) Lecky developed not one but four breeds of beef and dairy cattle adapted to Jamaican conditions. What have we done with them?

Citrus farmer Francis Greenwich Sharp developed a new fruit – dubbed the ‘ugly fruit’ – a hybrid between a grapefruit and a tangerine, in his farm in Trout Hall, Clarendon; his first exports of his new product were in 1917.

Why isn’t the ortanique known worldwide as a uniquely Jamaican fruit? About 1920, citrus farmer Charles Jackson propagated a new fruit – the ortanique – on his farm in Dunkeld, Manchester, a hybrid cross between the sweet orange and the tangerine. What have we done with this local innovation?

Why can’t we process roseapples into some sort of essence? What have our agricultural researchers been doing in the last 100 years?

The truth is that we have been so preoccupied with sugar cane that we have been blind to other possibilities.

With the weaknesses in Jamaica’s arrangements to feed its citizens becoming more apparent in the COVID-19 pandemic, the time is now to revolutionise our agriculture.

Peter Espeut is an environmentalist and development scientist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.