Farmers Receptive To JaSPICE Project

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food for Progress Jamaica Spices (JaSPICE) Project is being positively received by turmeric, ginger and pimento farmers who are interested in increasing and optimising crop production.

Senior Director for Strategic Planning and Projects at the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA), Vaughn Barnaby, told JIS News that farmers engaged with the project have, among other things, adopted the use of clean plant materials to reduce the prevalence of pests and diseases in their crops.

“There is strong interest, because one of the things is that the rhizome rot has been an issue for productivity for a number of years, with farmers losing upwards of 50 per cent of their field or the entirety of their production.

The project pushing the introduction of clean plant material is a major draw for farmers who are having high interest in ginger already,” he said.

Mr. Barnaby added that through the JaSPICE Project, younger ginger and pimento farmers are showing interest in the sector and employing new technology in their farming practices to make production more efficient.

“Most of the interest is coming from farmers who already have interest in ginger and pimento. One of the problems with pimento has been [that] a lot of our pimento grooves were older… and likewise, some of the farmers were older. With the technology of having plant materials coming into production earlier and you’re being able to plant more trees per acre, the farmers are interested in that, because it makes the crop easier to harvest because they are shorter, so there is less intensive labour in the harvesting. That’s a draw for pulling in, not only younger farmers, but farmers wanting to expand their production,” Mr. Barnaby said.

He further noted that the project is engaging farmers interested in turning turmeric into a viable crop for commercial markets.

“Turmeric in Jamaica has been harvested with a practice called wildcrafting, in the wild. While we have seen some farmers who had expressed an interest in having it more commercialised, the research to bring it from wildcrafting to actual commercial production has been lacking; so the project is now trying to put that on the ground. The farmers who were pulling from that wildcraft are expressing that interest. So instead of going into the bushes to pull it from the wild, how can I put it in a structured way and have continuous production,” Mr. Barnaby noted.

Interest in turmeric production by farmers was largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as it was shown to be beneficial to persons who contracted the virus, heightening demand for the spice.

“Because there was research saying that turmeric was helpful in that, we saw strong demand for turmeric. Even locally, where we’re having different manufacturers now doing turmeric teas and such, it has pushed the demand for this, and because of that demand, we are seeing farmers expressing an interest to increase their hectares or have new entrances to the marketplace,” said Mr. Barnaby.