TWENTY-NINE-YEAR-OLD Terrion Harriot took a swig of her drink as she stared out from the shade of a shop piazza in Moravia in North Western Clarendon. She was dreading the return journey down the slope to the plot of land she had been preparing to plant ginger.

It is back-breaking work, but Harriot is not able to take comfort in its reaping since the lack of a market for ginger has forced her and other farmers in the constituency to either sell below market value or watch the crop wither in the fields.

In fact, several farmers in Moravia told the Sunday Observer that most vendors pay them “what they feel like” because the glut on the market had driven down the prices considerably.

Harriot has been farming for two years, but the mother of two children – ages two and 10 – said the returns on ginger was far from great. Things could have been better for her, she said, if she could till “all the land” herself. Instead, she must pay $1,500 a day to have labourers weed the ground and till the soil.

“Mi7 tired ah it now because you haffi have money now fi go into farming,” said Harriot, throwing down her machete in frustration. She had taken a break after a long morning in the field.

In addition to the day’s pay and having to provide two meals for the labourers who stop working by 3:00 pm, Harriot said she also had to work alongside the men to ensure the job was properly done.

She dreams of becoming a nurse, but that is looking further out of her reach with each passing day as she is not able to save enough money from farming to pay for her studies.

But as challenging as her present task is, Harriot knows that if she does not farm she will become like thousands of young people in the constituency who have no income.

This was the constant cry among residents, especially the young people. “Look at the amount of young people here and them nuh have nutten fi do,” said one 49-year-old woman who did not wish to be named.

Many of the youth are hoping that they will be among the lucky few to get a “farm work ticket” from their Member of Parliament Michael Stern to go work overseas. Still, some who have no other means of feeding their families have taken up farming.

The newly paved roads in Moravia were empty when the Sunday Observer visited last week, as most residents were busy tending to their ginger crop or planting yams – another heavily farmed produce in the area.

“Is ginger time now so everybody deh a bush, that’s why you no see nobody pon the road,” said Derrick Harriot, Terrion’s father.

The ginger crop takes up to a year to reach maturity, but Mr Harriot said at times farmers were forced to begin reaping it within six months when they are strapped for cash. At the same time, some farmers in Moravia said they wanted their MP to assist them in identifying markets as there were no nearby factories to buy ginger. But this, some residents said, could prove difficult since they “hardly see him” since he won the seat.

“From him win, the only place we see him is on television,” said one resident. “Me was the second in line fi vote fi him, and from him win me nuh know if him come in the constituency, but me no behold him,” said Lorenzo Samuels, a farmer of the neighbouring Alston community. Samuels, however, commended Stern for repairs to the roads, which many residents throughout the constituency admitted were in a terrible condition for years.

For a constituency with over 40,000 residents – majority of whom depend mainly on farming for their livelihood – not having adequate water supply certainly does not help.

Many of the approximately 118 communities are without piped water, forcing residents to buy water at $300 per drum.

Residents of Top Alston said they have not had piped water for more than 16 years although their community is situated less than three miles from two major water supply systems. The residents emphasised that this was one promise which their MP made to them as he sought the nod of the 23,000 registered voters in the constituency. “Stern say two weeks after him win we would get water, and it is now going on two years and nutten,” one resident complained.

Outside of Murray’s Food Processing Factory in Tweedside, which provides employment for 130 residents from surrounding communities, there are no other large employers. The factory, which was established in 1975 by the Jamaica Agricultural Society, used to buy a variety of produce from farmers until it was closed in 2004 for three years, throwing many out of work and income. The residents told the Sunday Observer that they were grateful it had reopened under private management, and were hoping it would start buying other items from farmers apart from ackee. Frankfield is one of the larger towns, but even the business places there have reduced the number of persons they would normally hire.

Throughout the constituency many residents complained about the high unemployment rate in the community, despite the large number of residents who have a skill or are high school graduates.

Roy Hamilton of Top Alston knows this first hand. A welder for 22 years, he has taught some people the trade, even providing employment for many of the young people in the community. He was fortunate to have received a grant to establish the Vocational Training Centre, funded by Zeist Missionary Society of Holand through UNITAS of Jamaica – a service agency of the Moravia Church.

Back in the day the welding business flourished, employing many young people from the community to build gates and burglar bars for some of the massive homes to be found in the constituency.

“Now the youths dem want to come work but me can’t teck dem on anymore because me not getting as much work as ah used to,” Hamilton said, as he hung out with a group of men at a community shop in the middle of the day.

Pointing to his welding shop, which was equipped with the latest machinery, Hamilton said the young people in the community were some of the “best welders” for miles.

“One of the brightest young man around here is this young man,” he said pointing to Hayden Richards, now an electrical engineer student at the University of Technology. With the closure of two bauxite companies in the neighbouring parish of Manchester, Richards said it is even harder for young people in the constituency to find work.

“This is a small farming community but young people don’t like to get involved in farming because they are not getting any returns from it,” Richards said.

Roger Plummer, who is a certified electrician, said he has had to resort to farming which doesn’t pay much as he cannot get work for which he is trained.

The Top Alston residents say they are also without the service of a Justice of the Peace (JP), which is causing them severe inconvenience.

But it is not all doom and gloom for residents of Moravia and Alston as the MP has developed a greenhouse project that is expected to help hundreds of farmers grow more disease-free ginger. Farmer Asley Swazey welcomed the project, explaining that a lot of the ginger farms were affected “by a disease” which was crippling the yield. He has since made his own greenhouse to grow scotch bonnet, sweet pepper and Indian red peppers.