A job experience programme run by a group of Jamaicans living overseas is providing a number of young people with experience in organic farming.

The programme, named Farm Up Jamaica, is focused on driving the agricultural sector through organic farming practices and crops.

Two of the beneficiaries are Clarendonians Troy Ferril and Dahlia Cole who grow sorrel, kale, lettuce and peppers on the organisation’s five-acre training plot in the New Forest/Duff House Agro-Park in Manchester.

Ferril said he got involved in the project a year-and-a-half ago after a friend put him in touch with the CEO and director of Farm Up Jamaica Neil Curtis.

The 22-year-old stated that he always had a love for agriculture as he grew up with his grandfather who was a farmer.

“From I was growing up, I always go to bush with my grandfather and I always had a smaller cutlass than him, and if him chop a bush I’d follow him, so it just grow naturally in me from I was young,” he said.

Ferril said he studied General Agriculture at the HEART Academy. “At first it was okay [however] after a few months, I just felt like to quit, but I fight it out because I tell myself that once I start something it should be finished and I complete my course right through,” Ferril said.

He stated that his daily duties include conducting observations, watering and weeding plants as well as spraying the plants with an all-natural, chemical-free pesticide which was developed by Curtis.

“It’s since I come here that I learn that plants can grow without any chemical use. I see persons plant the same crop I plant around here and our plants that we use no chemical on come out more healthy and bigger than those who use chemicals,” Ferril stated.

“When we realise we have pests and bugs, we use a pepper spray, which is mixed with garlic, hot peppers, liquid soap and cooking oil; so that is our pesticide. Most of the time it kills them. We try to encourage other people to do it, but they are just singing on their chemicals.”

Cole concurred and pointed out that the older farmers in the agro-park often refuse their advice as they are of the view that they are too young and don’t know enough about farming.

“The other farmers older than us and they’ll say ‘weh dem likkle pickney a come from a give we idea; unnu jus a come from school and everything in the book’, so they don’t want the information,” she said.

“Yuh have some weh tell yuh that, ‘I was in organic for so long and it never did a put me nowhere’, and they will be using the chemicals in the windy time and when you talk to them they’ll be like, ‘it nah do yuh nuttin’,” Cole explained.

Despite that, she said they still try to maintain a good relationship with the other farmers while keeping focus on training and supervising the agricultural students from the Ebony Park HEART Academy.

“Students from HEART come and do their job experience and then after leaving school, they would indicate if they want to start working with us, and so we’ll train them for actually six months. After six months, if we see that they can manage their own plot, they would graduate from Farm Up Jamaica and become an organic farmer,” Cole, who is the supervisor for the students, explained.

She said following this, the students would be provided with one acre of land where they will be in charge of producing organic crops.

“They would basically be their own farmer, but they would have to work from our standards, like writing logs, using our pesticides and basically they have to do a report of what they do, but the crop they would plant is what is in demand. When they reap, we will take it from them, find the market and provide them with their money,” Cole explained of the process.

For the students who are a part of the job experience programme, Farm Up Jamaica covers the cost of rent and food for the duration of their stay when they are there on weekends and holidays. The programme also provides opportunities for the students to visit the farms operated by the organisation in other parishes.

A joint housing and packaging facility is currently being built by the entity in the agro-park, which, upon completion, should be able to house students as well as facilitate the processing and packaging of the crops grown.