Recommendations from A Jamaican Farm Worker in Canada

A Jamaican participating in the seasonal agricultural workers programme in Canada is encouraging local farmers to improve their agronomic methods and suggests several ways this can be done.

JIS News met John Kent* on an apple orchard in rural Ontario on October 15, while accompanying a Jamaican team of fact-finders who are probing the workers’ status.

Mr. Kent is a resident of Clarendon, where he operates an orange farm. He said over the 14 years that he has been participating in the programme, he has learnt certain lessons that have made him a better farmer, one of which is how to manage the soil.

“I understand much more about the soil. So, for example, if a tree’s leaves are getting yellow, I know that it needs magnesium,” he explained.

Mr. Kent added that some Jamaican farmers are overusing chemicals and are, in the process, hindering their progress.

“[Some] persons do not measure the chemicals, even though the measurement is on the bottle. We tend to use a lot of it, and we don’t really need to. What we need is the water to transport the chemical and that’s where I think we’re going wrong,” he outlined.

Mr. Kent said by bettering some of these farming methods, Jamaicans could save money on maintaining their farms.

Moreover, he sees himself as proof of this, noting that since bringing home this knowledge, “I have more growth”.

The experienced farmer also noted that workers on the farm work programme do not use the traditional tools with which locals might be familiar.

“The tractors plant corn here (Canada) and they reap the corn with tractors. They also plant and reap Irish [potatoes] with tractors. Everything is done with equipment. We don’t use fork, cutlass and hoe here,” he indicated.

On praedial larceny, Mr. Kent, in offering a few suggestions, proposed that “we need to change our concept”.

“I’ve been on sheep farms over here and every animal that is born… is documented. For instance, you have three goats and that goat has two kids, if there was a system in place where I could have a birth certificate for those goats, when I’m going to sell that ‘rammy’, I would have to give you the birth certificate,” he explained.

According to Mr. Kent, the system of documenting livestock could also help to curb certain health issues, based on his observations in Canada.

“In Jamaica, if I kill 20 chickens out of my coop, nobody has a clue where they go. If I sell them to a particular shop and that meat is contaminated, causing a lot of persons to get sick, who do you link it back to? Here, it’s different,” he informed.

“That guy has a barn over there and when he puts in those chickens, he already knows where they are going. The corn, before he plants them, he knows where it is going. If we’re going to move in that direction, these are the things we need to do in Jamaica,” he added.

Mr. Kent, who supervises a team of Jamaican men and women on the farm, said the spread of diseases is taken very seriously. Hence, if an oddity is discovered in any of the fruit trees, it is immediately reported.

“We don’t take that for granted. We mark it, we don’t even brush on it, there’s no contact. These things are very important to us [because] if we take [them] lightly, we could lose a whole crop. We have to find out why it is here and what caused it, instead of just eradicating it right away,” he explained

A father of three, whose children are in primary school, high school and university, Mr. Kent dismissed naysayers of the seasonal work programme.

“When we’re coming here and they say ‘oh, you’re just a farm worker’; they don’t understand that we are getting wiser. The knowledge that is passed down to us here, that is how we can build a better sector. We can [return] home and have a better experience on our farms,” he told JIS News.

“I look on this programme as, not just coming here (Canada) to earn a living but to see what I can bring back home and show other persons,” Mr. Kent added.

Since 1966, thousands of Jamaicans have been participating in the seasonal agricultural workers programme in Canada.

The team of fact-finders, established by the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, are half-way through their probe and will visit other farms in various Canadian provinces.