In September 2021 environmental engineer Dylan Chong bought the Croydon Estate in St James to revolutionise the plantation’s agricultural and tourism activities. His aim was to promote sound environmental practices and strengthen the linkages between agriculture, tourism, and manufacturing within the business.

Chong explained that he has rebranded the concept of the plantation to “purity of life”, transforming what was a straightforward tour of the plantation, its plants, trees, and activities to a 2.0 upgrade with a focus on sustainability.

“We’re now a bird sanctuary, a botanical garden, a bee sanctuary,” Chong revealed. “So we’ve made the majority of adjustments in how we plant for the plantation, which is 100 per cent organic. I call it sacred organic because it’s actually like a spiritual practice of organic.”

These organic cultivations include coffee and a variety of fruits, including 19 types of pineapples.

But the concept of sustainability at Croydon goes beyond just healthy farming activities and extends to integrating agriculture with other sectors of the economy, such as tourism and manufacturing for financial viability.

Croydon works with destination management companies who organise excursions for tourists to connect with nature, sample the plantation’s products, and learn about its farming practices.

Chong wants to expand this learning process to actual schools and students.

“I really want to bring forth, in the next school term, an educational programme for forestry and agriculture,” he said, adding that Croyden is Jamaica’s first private forest reserve. “It’s more like one of the things that is a more sustainable thing that we have communities learning a different culture of building technology with bamboo or farming organically without buying any poisonous fertilisers or pesticides or how to actually plan out your nutrition.”

Those are future plans for giving back to the community, but according to Chong, even now, Croydon hires “around 30 people from the area during the low season, but during times when there is coffee production or other tasks, the number can go up to 60 or even 100 if there is an abundance of work”.

On the manufacturing side, the environmental engineer revealed that the business is in the process of opening a store in Montego Bay to sell manufactured products from the estate, such as honey, pepper jelly, and a farm seasoning marinade that represents the flavours of the farm. He will also soon be roasting the organic coffee grown at the farm, offering it to guests and marketing it under the Croydon brand.

Currently, the estate sells its products to visiting tourists and hotels.

And, in another avenue of growth, Chong will start promoting farm-to-table dining experiences in July.

“It’s essentially a gourmet barbecue,” he said. “We’re offering overnights on the estate and camping, but it’s going to be fully catered, like proper gourmet.”

After two years of evolution, some of which was slowed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Chong is set to stage the grand opening of the new Croydon Estate.

His vision for the near future is to create a positive impact for future generations and promote a cultural shift towards environmental sustainability through the activities of the business.

“We will be an example for the rest of Jamaica’s agriculture [through] different farming practices that are more sustainable,” he declared.

Chong used the example of fertilisers to make his point.

“There has to be a way that we understand that we can actually create very potent fertilisers and potent, enriching ways of fungicide and insecticide,” he explained. “So, for example, like my bees significantly reduce the amount of pests on my other plants, but they create honey, they create work, they create so many other things – by-products. It’s a whole ecosystem of farming and I think it’s going to be aligned with the purpose that I believe I’m here to execute, which is also to be an educator. So I really would like to have, within five years, have us be at that flagship level so that we can implement it in schools, right? That is where I would love it to go.”

Croyden Estate stands at the intersection of agriculture, tourism, manufacturing, and dining, but history can also be added to that equation because the plantation was the birthplace of Sam Sharpe, Jamaica’s national hero, who led a slave rebellion in 1831.

The property is a national treasure because of its past. Chong wants its value to live on through its activities in the present.