Importer blames storage gap for leaving onion farmers in tears
Published:Sunday | March 22, 2026 | 12:06 AMKaren Madden - Sunday Gleaner Writer
Onion importers are pushing back against suggestions that their business is killing local farmers, now experiencing a glut.
Since the first round of reaping began following the devastation wrought by Hurricane Melissa, local farmers have been howling about their inability to sell their produce, resulting in hundreds of pounds rotting in the field.
From St Elizabeth to St Thomas, they have pointed the finger of blame at importers of foreign-produced onions.
However, those importers insist the current situation is much more nuanced, arguing that a perfect storm was created by the closure of hotels in Melissa’s wake and increased food importation as Jamaicans and other well-wishers sent thousands of tons of relief to the hurricane-ravaged parishes. This, the importers argue, led to an unprecedented pile up at the ports and clearance delays.
Import licences are typically issued to coincide with the period when local crops are not being produced, but the importers claim those lags in the delivery process resulted in an unfortunate overlap this season.
Jamaica mainly imports from The Netherlands and The Sunday Gleaner has viewed import licence documentation but is still awaiting responses to questions sent on February 19 to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining regarding the players and conditions considered in determining the levels at which onions are allowed to be imported.
In February, one of St Elizabeth’s largest onion farmers, Andre Dyer, told The Gleaner he was struggling to find buyers and now St Thomas onion farmers Tiffany Davis and Kevin Cooper are also blaming their inability to sell their yield on foreign onions, which are sold cheaper to the final user.
With Jamaican farmers rebounding quickly after the hurricane’s passage, the country is now experiencing a bumper crop.
It’s why one onion importer, Edgar Thomas* (name changed on request) opined that part of the issue is a lack of storage.
“There is a gap which is, we don’t have storage and even if we have storage, our processing procedure and our reaping procedure is not conducive to the gap,” Thomas* told The Sunday Gleaner.
He also argued that the regime which governs who is issued with an importation licence is flawed.
“Importers should be farming in order to obtain import licence. You should be involved in production and, outside of further consideration, you would not be considered for an import. If the onion we produce between October to April, they look at it they see when we produce and they arrive at a gap, in that scenario they will issue licences but those licences are issued on who you are. They determine that these are the gaps when local production is available. The conditions are too loose. It should stay flexible but it is way too loose,” said Thomas*
Onions favour cooler conditions to thrive so, during the warmer months, the country relies on imports. However he said the situation needs to be managed.
More money importing than investing
“You can make more money importing than investing in local farming. We need to import and you have to take our climatic conditions into consideration. (But) the greedy ones gave themselves too many permits to bring into products overlapping with the local production.”
Sherman Campbell, chairman of the Potato and Onion Producers Association (POPA) and speaking on behalf of other importers and traders, shared similar sentiments, stating that the issue is far more complex than imported onions flooding the market.
POPA members are importers, farmers and buyers and Campbell’s group points to increased storage space for local farmers as part of the solution for the current glut.
Last month, through a $7.57-billion United Kingdom government-funded investment, the government opened a new agro-processing facility in Essex Valley, St Elizabeth, “aimed at strengthening the country’s food security, agricultural productivity and resilience to climate change”.
The facility is expected to allow farmers across the island to store, process and market their produce more efficiently.
Campbell told The Sunday Gleaner that, through a partnership with POPA and the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA), the facility has been leased to provide storage.
It’s a complex process that Campbell described as a “logistical nightmare” and sees trucks moving the produce from St Thomas farms to Kingston to be dried for three to four weeks before being sent on to St Elizabeth in cold trucks.
The Essex Valley facility has room to dry half a million pounds of onions. They are dried using 18,000-cubic-feet-per-minute fans before being transferred to cold storage which has a one million-pound capacity.
The ideal temperature for the drying process is around 28 degrees Celsius while cold storage requires a temperature of two degrees to keep onions fresh for several months.
“We have been purchasing onions from many of our farmers, albeit we still need more hands on deck, meaning other purveyors to get involved with purchasing more onions and potatoes and we have been storing at Essex Valley. The ministry has asked for a report from us to ascertain what are the challenges we’ve had with getting the onions there, storing there, and what it is that they can do. The Ministry of Agriculture has also dedicated several trucks to helping us with the logistics and transportation of said produce.”
“Will lead you into bankruptcy”
Jamaica’s agricultural sector is built on the foundation of the maxim “eat what you grow and grow what you eat but, for one onion farmer, that notion “will lead you into bankruptcy”.
With Jamaicans consuming more than 13 million kilograms of onion annually, Kevin ‘Lenky’ Cooper refuses to accept that hotel closures in the wake of Hurricane Melissa have reduced the demand.
Even as he spoke with The Sunday Gleaner, tons of onions were either sitting on the field after being reaped, stacked high in a nearby garage which costs him $5,000 per week, or on his aunt’s veranda with no buyer in sight.
The Sunday Gleaner also saw several more pounds, which had already rotted in his field.
Cooper, who has been planting onions since 2013 and is the self-styled architect of the onion farming project in the area, acknowledged that there have been problems leading up to this season, but insisted that the current situation is teetering towards a crisis.
“Mi hear di man dem a say, like the POPA people dem a say, a Melissa because the shipment dem did harder and through the storm it did bank up a sea. But even again, when dem a read out statistics, a weh di hotel a use. But mi a get the odds like the home consumption more than di hotel, so mi nuh know how hotel mek dis cyah sell and di hotel is just a likkle drop inna di consuming. And now wid all di Strait a Hormuz close and di oil ah guh affect everything, suh mi nah guh can guh back next season.”
The Sunday Gleaner quizzed Cooper on claims that farmers have been asking too much for their produce.
“We been selling for $160 [per pound] for the past six years aback, suh mi nuh tink dat coulda be di problem and dem used to still scrape, still call, suh mi nuh tink dat a di problem. The meeting weh RADA dem have is just di same as weh mi a tell you - di problem. RADA just a advertise di problem to wi, and wi nuh wah hear ‘bout di problem, wi wah hear ‘bout di solution.”
A stone’s throw away from Cooper’s farm is the one and a half acres that Tiffany Davis has been farming for the past three years.
She told The Sunday Gleaner this is her worst season yet.
“The first two years was OK. This year I get good products and turn out, is just the buyer. Wi cyah get nuh buyer. Normally wi would get buyer pan di farm, people would turn up and buy but this year nobody nuh turn up and when wi call dem, dem say dem full up because, the imported onion, dem have too much.”
Even though importers are pointing to increased storage of the produce as the lifeblood for the sector, Cooper insisted that that issue has never been one that small farmers like himself and Davis have had to face.
Notwithstanding the facility in St Elizabeth, Cooper is urging the private sector to establish storage facilities in the area in joint partnership with St Thomas farmers, known to be Jamaica’s largest producers of onion.
POPA pays the farmers 20 per cent of the $140 per pound up front, with the balance paid between 30 and 60 days later, but for Davis the Essex Valley facility is not an option.
“That come in like stupidness to send you crop guh way a St Elizabeth guh store onion from St Thomas. Dat nuh mek nuh sense to mi. Mi nuh know ‘bout other farmer, but dat nuh mek nuh sense to mi. So mi just a hope and pray.”
Now she has turned to her friend to store her produce while anticipating that the market will come.
“Wi cyah do nuttin, wi just haffi deh here a hope and pray that buyer come through. As mi say, a di imported onions dem say a mash up di market. Dem say it deh deh nuff suh dem cyah tek fi wi onion because di imported onion dem way cheaper than wi woulda sell fi wi fah.”
The farmers also urged the Government to be more astute about how many import licences are granted and when importers are allowed to bring in the produce to prevent overlaps.
Campbell agreed with the farmers on this, pointing out that the agriculture ministry was not able to gauge the supply because of Melissa and took steps, including importation, to ensure food security.
Import licence regime
is too loose
Thomas* and Campbell argued that the import licence regime is too loose and requires more people who have the capacity to improve the sector through significant investments.
“It is the same persons that don’t make no investment, sometimes we see them allowed to import and then they say we want it to be open. It can’t be open, it can’t. If you are not willing to make, have a skin in the game, leave that sector alone.”
Despite the present glut, Campbell sees more opportunities for the sector but that requires significant partnership between the Government and private investors.
“Those discussions have driven persons like myself personally to want to make further investments in the sector and I have also engaged other members of the group (POPA) for us to take Irish potatoes and onions to the other level. Onions specifically to talk about drying. A lot of this cannot be the responsibility of government. It has to be private sector driven.”
The light at the end of the tunnel for him is not an onrushing train bringing disaster, but rather the dawn of a new day in agriculture.
“We hope that once this situation is behind us, we [will] get back to the business of focusing on the growth of the sector we remember. Because it’s not fair that we ask our farmers to produce and they have produced and then we don’t have anywhere to put the production, right; store it for distribution. I also want to make the point that we talk investments, the investments have to be made in research and development to enhance.”