A St Thomas man who went into mango farming just to survive when he was unable to earn a living from the sea during times of bad weather is now reaping the success of that decision.

According to Jacent Edwards, his exports and local sales amount to approximately 35 tons per year of the fruit that is easily one of the most loved in Jamaica and many countries across the world.

“I’ve been farming for 39 years,” Edwards told the Jamaica Observer North and East during a recent visit to his 20-acre farm in Heart Ease, St Thomas.

“I used to be a captain, and I lived at sea. I am able to take you anywhere you want to go at sea,” he said.

Edwards admitted that he had no formal training in agriculture. He only observed the techniques utilised by his grandfather, who grew coffee and a few other crops on a small scale.

“But you learn as you go along. So, trial and error is a good way to put it,” he said.

“We have other crops here — good amount of ackees — but our main [crop] is mangoes,” he said. “We’ve been doing naseberry for a while, but we are unable to reap it at its optimum time because we still don’t know when it’s ready or when it’s not ready… we are unable to do it.”

He said he planted the first tree about 20 years ago and “it’s bearing all now, and… we cannot say that this fruit will ripe in two weeks’ time, unlike mangoes”.

Edwards said his farm now produces East Indian, St Julian, Keith, Stringy/Hairy, Bombay, Haden, Number 11, Number 13, Beefie, Pari, Trin-gram and Nelson mangoes. The most popular among them are the East Indian and Julie varieties.

“We export 80 per cent of the Julie mangoes and 25 to 30 per cent of the East Indian,” he explained, adding that the volumes don’t reflect market preference. “The Julie is just easier to pick and handle. Even if it is picked young, it will still ripe.” On the other hand, the East Indian mango, he said, will not ripen if it is picked when it is young.

“When a mango blossoms, four months’ time after it blossoms it is ready. It takes four months between blossom and maturity and this is the same for East Indian and Julie,” he said. “But when the time is dry, the Julie comes two weeks earlier than the East Indian. Blossoms start by December/January and sometimes as late as February. However, this year is a phenomenon…because we have an extended mango season.”

Edwards said that on a good week the farm could yield 10 tons (approximately 20,000 pounds) of mangoes, requiring him to employ up to 20 people during the busy season. However, on a slow day that number will decrease to five.

Edwards credits the change in weather for this year’s extended mango season. “I think the weather pattern has changed, because we now get rain when we normally don’t, and we are getting rain even when we didn’t expect it. But the rain is better than the water bill constantly from the National Irrigation Commission because they never forget it,” said.

Edwards admitted that he is unable to quantify the number of mango trees now on the farm. However, he knows the number that’s missing. “Currently we have 42 missing trees that we need to replant because of age and wear and tear as well as the drought,” he said.

“We had a terrible drought — one last year and one three years ago — and we lost a number of mango trees. We also lost coconuts and some ackee.”

Outside of drought, mango farming, Edwards said, comes with hazards, such as fruit flies. To combat the pests, Edwards sets fly traps with a yeast bait which, he said, attract the fruit flies so when they go inside they are trapped and eventually drown.

Although Edwards seems satisfied with reaping and selling the fruit as is, he is thinking of setting up a mango winery, as he has seen it being done in a few countries, like Haiti. “They make wines with mango, pineapple, even coconut,” he said.

That, though, will require significant investment. And, while he said he has no problem with security on his farm, he believes that there is much to be done at the national level. “The country can do better with security,” he argued. “We don’t need a lot of money. We seem to believe everything is money. But there is technology, we can use it as an advantage. We have drones, but you also tell us if we see them (the drones) in one place for too long you can shoot them down. We tend to make everything about money.”