Growth & Jobs | 24-y-o Portland farmer plans to build modern pig-rearing business

TWENTY-FOUR-YEAR-OLD PIG farmer Giovanni Morris dreams of establishing his own state-of-the-art-facility as he integrates modern technology into the animal-rearing process.

Currently, the Portland resident shares a farm in Boston Bay with mentor and business partner Seymour Duncan, which he says, needs improvement.

“Whenever I reach a level where I can acquire the [farm] that I want, I want it to be completely indoors where I’ll be able to keep my animals cool, have proper waste management, proper air-exchange management, and so forth. Hopefully, in the future, I can put that down,” he said.

Morris, who is studying construction management at the University of Technology (UTech), says he intends to use the knowledge and skills gained from his studies to assist in the expansion and upgrade of the space he currently occupies until he can establish the modern facility he desires.

“We are planning to expand the facility that we’re using [because] it’s been there before I was born ... but we try to take care of it as best as possible,” he said.

The young entrepreneur, who started farming less than two years ago, says he decided to focus on pig rearing to tap into the high demand for jerk pork in Boston Bay.

He and his business partner also manufacture and sell jerk seasoning.

However, Morris says that there have been many challenges along the way, noting that proper waste management is the hardest part of his business.

He says he must ensure that the “waste doesn’t become a nuisance to anybody, whether it is the smell or the spread of bacteria”.

“[Pig rearing is] a very delicate situation, [and] we want to be able to produce the best product possible without disturbing the environment,” he pointed out.

He added that even though he lives in a farming community, “every farmer should be conscious and know that if they are going to farm, it will affect [others]”.

Proper access to water supply is also critical, the young farmer says, but he is hoping that infrastructure work being done in the parish will improve access to the commodity.

Morris, who was involved in party promotion before getting into farming, says he had to pivot due to the downturn in the staging of events due to COVID-19.

“My friends and I were promoters, [and] we were focused on keeping our annual event. Unfortunately, when the pandemic hit, we had to put that aside,” he noted.

“So I decided that I wanted to try something new, and that’s where I said, ‘I’m going to start raising some animals, seeing that I’m an animal lover,” he added.

He says that it was his friend, Everton Dennis, a student at the College of Agriculture, Science and Education (CASE) in Portland, who walked him through the processes involved in operating a farm before he purchased his first animal.

“He, basically, gave me a rundown of everything, and he said I should go ahead and try,” Morris explained.

With mentoring support from Duncan, who offered to share his farm, he learned the practicalities of animal rearing.

“Every morning, Seymour would call me at 6 a.m. to go to the pen. He walked me through the whole process for about two months ... and I had to get used to the animals,” he outlined.

Due to the demand of his studies and farm-upgrade plans, Morris says he has reduced the number of pigs to five but should be back in full production in January.

He says that the farming experience has been rewarding so far and has changed his outlook on life as well as enhanced his belief in the importance of agriculture.

“I appreciate every type of farming because I think, going forward, we should be looking into growing what we eat and producing our own food. It can only be better for us,” he said.

Morris knows that his dream of building a modern, technology-driven facility will not come overnight, but until then, he remains committed to “doing it the hard way”.

“Doing it the hard way [helps me to] appreciate the basics. So when technology comes in, it’ll be much easier for me to integrate and to be able to produce more while doing less ... and that’s the dream,” he said.

JIS