Prince Smith, a Blue Mountain coffee farmer, has launched a GoFundMe appeal to raise legal fees to press his claim for the land which he farms. He explains that his forebears have lived on Moy Hall since the time of slavery and his mother bears the name of the first land owner.

Courtney Fletcher, land surveyor and principal in Nakashka Coffee Company Limited, has taken Smith, the coffee farmer on the Moy Hall property in Yallahs, St Thomas, to court as trespasser on land for which he possesses a title.

But, Smith, who has been embroiled in court over the matter for half a decade, told the Jamaica Observer that he is going to court to defend his stake of ten acres which he says has been passed down to his family from the time of slavery. The case came up before the parish court in Yallahs, St Thomas, on December 8, one day before he spoke to the Business Observer.

Smith claims to be a descendant of the first owner of Standing Spring Coffee Plantation, known as the Moy Hall Estate, which was established in the 1790s by William McCooty.

He has launched a GoFundMe appeal with the target of raising US$10,000 to pay his lawyer. His lawyer, Denise Smith, who was unaware of the appeal until contacted by the Business Observer, says there is much that remains to be untangled about the matter.

The Business Observer reached out to Fletcher, who was unavailable, but whose wife said, “We have a registered title for the land. We bought the land. If you say something that’s incorrect, we are going to sue. Go and check the titles office and find out how the transaction went.”

Fletcher previously indicated that he purchased acreage from JMMB as part of a bad debt portfolio, arising from a loan taken by a farmers cooperative which operated on the property.

Attorney-at-law Smith, who represents Prince Smith (no relation), explained that her client has been taken to court by Courtney Fletcher as a trespasser. Giving some background, she said, “The Jamaica Agricultural Society…went into an agreement with the owners, promising to pay land taxes and put coffee growers on the property.

“They set up a Blue Mountains coffee growers [cooperative] made up of 75 farmers. The committee was dissolved in 2010. We are hearing that some monies were borrowed from a bank. The claimant says he purchased the property from JMMB.” Smith said the property was unregistered until Fletcher produced a title. The matter is now being dealt with by the court.

Prince Smith told the Business Observer, “McCooty is my mother’s great-grandfather. What I have is a lease agreement for the cooperative, received in 2005. I am 50 years old now. About 52 of us as farmers were given lots by the Moy Hall Coffee Cooperative.”

Smith said he is uncertain of what the outcome will be, but he intends to continue the struggle which has been ongoing for the last five years.

His story on GoFundMe states that Prince started his farm in Ness Castle, a small community in the Cedar Valley region of western St Thomas, Jamaica. The area has farmlands extending from 3000-5000 feet above sea level in the heart of the Blue Mountains.

He began by planting 875 new trees and today he has established over 18,000 fully grown coffee trees, all twenty years and younger. Each acre has approximately 875 coffee trees.

The story said, “Standing Spring Coffee Plantation employs 5 persons full-time, all year round, to take care of the trees and to ensure that each tree is given the love, attention and care that it needs. When the crop season is in, between September and the end of June every year, 10 to 15 persons are employed for reaping the cherry berries.”

Prince Smith appealed, “I am in desperate need of help with legal fees to defend my coffee farm …land that I have worked my entire life to develop and which has been in my family for generations.”

He stated, “We are capital- starved by the culture of cash flow within the coffee industry, in a remote community where our livelihoods depend completely on what we can get from coffee buyers for our coffee cherries. Unlike many from my community, I have dared to venture and dream to try to process my own coffee and create value-added products.

“I employ many people from my community and even when times have been very hard in the coffee industry, I never gave up and fought, despite the odds, to ensure that jobs, pay, and opportunities were created for men and women in my community on my farm, ensuring that they were taken care of before even myself.”