Champion farmer hits back at hurricanes
Published:Saturday | August 20, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter
REACH, Portland:
ANNETTE THOMPSON has hurricane-proofed her farm. This Portland woman says storm winds normally wreak havoc on her banana plantation, flattening the fragile plants and everything in its path.
Although banana had provided her with the levels of returns that enabled her to build two houses and buy a truck, the 35-year-old woman said she could no longer bear the battering from storm winds.
"Since (Tropical Storm) Nicole mi change to dasheen. The banana work good fi mi, but since the (storm) mi affi stop," she told The Gleaner.
Annette said she used to drive her truck down the rugged terrain in Reach, Portland, to capital city Kingston where she would sell her produce to a factory.
When she closed the chapter on banana farming, Annette turned to dasheen and she said it is paying rich dividends. One pound of dasheen is sold for $45.
"I have an export market for it. Right now, I have more demand than supply. The gentleman want like 3,000 pounds a week and mi caah really find it," she said.
With machete in hand, the champion farmer, who has been recognised for her ingenuity in marketing and producing bananas, eliminates weeds threatening to suffocate her dasheens.
Dirt grin all over her clothes and she wears a waterboot with such dominance as a man would. In explaining her decision to switch from bananas, Annette said, "Mi move from the banana to the dasheen because is an underground crop and mi just tired a di hurricane."
Pointing to acres of land beyond her seven-acre plot now under dasheen cultivation, Annette said, "As far as you can see, everywhere flat, everything (gets blown) down when we have hurricane."
"I have to go back over and plant and by the other year hurricane come and it gone," she added.
The single mother told The Gleaner that she wakes up at 4 o'clock every morning, makes her sons' breakfast and get them ready for the day ahead before leaving her house at about 5.
"Mi reach here a few minutes to 6 or sometimes 6 and start work," she said.
It is a journey she makes by way of bicycle which she pedals up a seemingly forgotten road. She says she works every day, even on public holidays and weekends.
"I rest when I want (to) because I am my own boss," she said.
Annette, meanwhile, is not bothered by "two-legged puss" who often ravage her farm to steal produce.
She has only one request of Agriculture Minister Robert Montague. The issue relates to the price of fertiliser.
"That is the biggest problem - fertiliser is too expensive. I would like him to put in place something to identify the real farmers and give us a subsidy on fertiliser," she said.
A bag of fertiliser costs about $4,500.
And as for her message to fellow Jamaicans who have an interest in farming, Annette says they must be prepared to put in hard work in order to reap rich rewards.
"You shouldn't do it because you see someone else doing it. You have to really want it and say, 'Yes, this is what I want'. Maybe, this will be a wake-up call to those persons who think going to bush is a crime."