Small farmers to get 4,000 acres on former Long Pond Sugar Estate
Some 4,000 acres of lands on the former Long Pond Sugar Estate in Trelawny is being made available to small famers in the area for cultivation.
Agriculture Minister Audley Shaw, who made the announcement, encouraged farmers in the area to make good use of this opportunity. Addressing the ground-breaking ceremony of the Organic Growth Holdings medical hemp farm on Wednesday in Long Pond, Trelawny, Minister Shaw advised farmers that they too can get into hemp production, urging them to get a licence from the Cannabis Licensing Authority and get started.
Shaw was unable to give much detail about this issue, having just gotten the information from Joseph Shoucair, managing director of Sugar Company of Jamaica Holdings (SCJH), which is responsible for the assets of all government-controlled sugar companies, including lands.
However, speaking with the Jamaica Observer‘s Caribbean Business Report, Shoucair said the 4,000 acres of arable cane lands would be leased to Trelawny Pride, an umbrella company of the All-Island Cane Farmers’ Association (AICFA). He said the plan is to have Trelawny Pride sub-lease the lands to qualified small farmers in and around the Long Pond Sugar Estate.
The lands would be leased in plots of four acres to as many as 200 acres. According to Shoucair, the strategy being used in this programme is one of central marketing for cash crops such as onions, tomatoes, cassava and sweet potatoes, in which the farmers would get a guaranteed market at a guaranteed price for all their produce.
“So whatever you produce they will be buy…you will give you 20,000 lb of tomatoes, they will buy from you at ‘X’ dollar, so there is a guaranteed market – and that’s the proposal we have,” the SCJ Holdings boss explained.
PROGRAMME TO BE LAUNCHED JANUARY
Turning to the launch of this project, Shoucair reported, “We are looking forward to the launch of this programme in January. I wanted it before Christmas so Christmas is upon us, so it has to be early in January.”
He said SCJ Holdings, and the Government by extension, are very excited about this programme, which will involve over 100 farmers and provide work and an income for those who were displaced when the sugar factory closed down in 2017.
