Anyone visiting the farm in The Valley, where Ras Elijah and his friends spend a great deal of time planting, nurturing and harvesting their crops, must be amazed by the large-scale farming work there.
After eight months, a big harvest of yams on two plots is in progress, but with only a few holes reaped so far.
“It is about 1,000 planted holes altogether, with about 401 in one plot and more than 600 in the other plot,” Ras Elijah estimated. “We have some produce weighing up to 18 pounds with other yams averaging 5 or 6 pounds each, so altogether we are looking for a few thousand pounds.”
Asked about sales and marketing, he replied: “They say yams are no big problem on the island to get sold, but I will be looking to St. Martin and, if necessary, theBritish Virgin Islands.”
He spoke about other cultivations on the farm: “We have bananas and plantains,” he waved his arm across the field. “We have also put in some corn and collard greens, as well as tomatoes though not as many as last year – but we intend to put in may be a few more hundred tomato plants. We also have bearing breadfruit trees, avocado trees growing very well, and even sugarcane and cassava.
“We are going to plant a lot of cassava, may be like a quarter acre, and lots of sugarcane. We have a special cane we got fromTrinidad. It is red and very soft, sweet and juicy.It eats like an apple. We peel the cane and put it in 5-dollar bags for ready pickup, but if anybody wants it otherwise we can sell it at a different price.”
Ras Elijah recalled that last year he and his friends had a bumper harvest of sweet potatoes with many of them weighing between 2 and 4 pounds. “The University of theWest Indiesdid a write-up on them. I am still waiting to see it. They were pretty good potatoes,” he said.“I got the vines fromAntigua.”
Ras Elijah is the main driving force behind the agricultural project and makes this acknowledgment: “I cannot forget Ras B and Isaiah. They play a great part in it because, by myself, I wouldn’t be able to continue, and so I give thanks for that. It is a good livelihood.”
According to Ras Elijah, the cultivated areas (except the yam plots) are usually under carefully-used drip irrigation when rainfall is low. The plants are being nurtured with organic or “green manure” obtained mainly from quantities of grass and bush cuttings allowed to decay in the soil. “It isCrownLandthat was handed over to the Rastafarian community, from about 1980, so we have it for over 30 years now and we intend to make it better and better,” he added gratefully.
