The clarion call of producing and eating what we grow as a country has been made several time by our leaders and others.

Carron Hall High School located in the south- western section of St Mary has responded to this call with an aggressive but well-tailored agricultural department specialising in growing mainly cash crops and the rearing of chickens.

With roughly two acres of the school’s property at this time dedicated to farming, the school has been reaping the benefits. Teacher of agricultural science and farm manager Cedena Vickers Forrest told the Jamaica ObserverNorth & East that since the farm came into being it has contributed tremendously to the school.

Focusing mainly on the growing of peppers, corn, melons, string beans, pak choi, cucumbers, callaloo, pumpkins and Irish potatoes, the school supplies its canteen, staff members and, in some cases, local vendors, who in turn sell in the markets across St Mary .

In fact, Vickers Forrest and Principal Carlinton Johnson boasted that over 4,000 pounds of Irish potatoes were reaped and sold last year.

“The money goes into the treasury of the school,” the agricultural teacher explained.

Describing the pepper field as “special”, the educator said the present batch of pepper trees have been bearing fruit for almost one year.

“This (the pepper) was done by a group of boys — because we have mainly boys in the school with many of them being what is termed at risk. As a result, we wanted to be able get them something to do. So we have a group of them that they used to do this project, and this project now helped with Maths, English and other science areas,” Vickers Forrest noted. “At the seedling stage they they measure the growth and all of that, ‘fertiliser, chemical treatment must be calculated and that it where you get the connection to the other subjects.”

The teacher also boasted that the school operates a chicken coop which currently houses 125 broiler chickens.

“It’s a project of the grade 11 students. They have to do their SBA (School Based Assessment Test),” Vickers Forrest, who is from the area but who studied in the United States, said.

These chickens, according to the educator, are reared solely to satisfy the school’s canteen.

Eighteen-year-old Guivach Ferguson explained the role him and his colleagues play in the chicken-rearing process.

“During the school week we would come and like give them feed, water and turn the sawdust. We will do this daily to keep the scent down so the chicken house does not smell,” he explained.

“We have a schedule and we divide the class in groups. Four students are responsible for the chicken house per day, and everyday those students will come down here and drop the curtains if the time is cold, give the chickens feed and water and just ensure that they are well,” he continued.

The three-week-old birds, according to Ferguson, will be slaughtered by the class in three weeks, and sold to the canteen, which his teacher noted is a profitable venture.

“Every two weeks we would slaughter for the canteen and because of the size of the house that we have, every two weeks we would provide them with over 400 pounds at $160 per pound. The last time we slaughtered we had 480 pounds which is a good average as each of the birds gave us four pounds at six weeks,” said Vickers Forrest.

“We normally have them right throughout the year and we would supply the canteen… normally we would have like two sets, but because of Matthew and the uncertainty of the weather and the house is not what it should be, we are making do with what we have really, we only have this set for exam purposes. Normally it (the coop) would be stocked out,” she explained.

To operate the coop over the six-week period, Forrest said it costs roughly $33,000 for 100 birds and another $1,650 for 20 bags of feed.

“We do make a profit because we average our weight. We’ve been averaging good weight because of care and management. So we make sure they have their water, they always have their feed, the litter is dry and we don’t have a high mortality rate, so we do make a profit from this. All of that goes to our department and then the money is used up in other areas too,” Vickers Forrest said.

She lauded the work of her grade 11 students who tend to the animals daily, noting that they have only lost two birds, despite the cold weather which tends to kill more birds.

Outside interference hinders profit

Though Hurricane Matthew did not affect Jamaica as expected, recent torrential rainfall in the parish has threatened the initiative.

“The other day we had water coming in from the front [into the coop] because all of the water that came from the top [of the hill]. It came down and these guys (students) had to come and rescue them (chickens) in terms of making a little trench and so on,” she said.

Vickers Forrest indicated that the farm has also been affected by praedial larceny.

“Last year we lost some of our melons to praedial larcency,” she said. “They came in and they went away with over 300 pounds our our large and very sweet melons during our melon-reaping season which is in June.”

“If it wasn’t because of theft we would amount to over 500 pounds of melon last year,” she said in disappointment.

Though the school has watchmen, the teacher reasoned that the farm is more susceptible to theft because it is poorly lit.

The school is looking to improve its farm and increase chicken production. Forrest revealed that they are seeking assistance to expand the coop.