St. Ann farmers laud root crop project

OCHO RIOS – St. Ann farmers are lauding the Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) Root Crop Project, and the input of the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) in helping them to improve the quality of crop production.“ This project involves a number of root crops, mainly yam, coco, sweet potato, Irish potato and ginger,” Manager for RADA’s St. Ann branch, Pedro Worghs, told JIS News.

He said they were two components to the programme. The first has to do with the establishment of demonstration plots for the various root crops. Three plots each were set up for Irish potato, yellow yam, coco and ginger.

“To date, we have reaped two of the three Irish potato plots and the results were very encouraging. Presently, the coco, ginger and yam plots are still growing, and we are looking forward to good results from these crops, as well, when the time comes for them to be reaped,” Mr. Worghs said.

The second component was the establishment of 22 half acre plots of yellow yam, plus 30 farmers received planting materials to establish half acre plots of sweet potato.

“The farmers are being closely monitored and training on the establishment to post harvesting of the crops is being provided by the RADA extension officers on a regular basis,” he said. He also commended the extension officers for the job they have been doing with the farmers in their fields.

Irish potato farmer, Delroy Brown, told JIS News that he was happy to be involved in the FAO project, and thanked RADA’s extension officers for their help.

“I must say that I find that the quality of potatoes that I reaped, under this programme, is far better than those that I have reaped in other times. I have reaped over 3,000 pounds of Irish potato under the programme, and the market was very good because the quality of the potatoes was very good,” he said.

Yam Farmer, Clinton Sterling said that he too was happy to be a part of the programme.

“I have received some quality yam heads from RADA, and I am expecting to reap some good quality yams in the end. I had some yam heads for myself before, so what the programme has done is to drive me into expansion mode and I am really happy for that,” he said.

By ALDEEN CAMPBELL