KINGSTON, Jamaica—As Farmers’ Month activities wind down for April, the spirits of those optimistic about the future of farming in Jamaica remain high.

Twenty-eight-year-old Kimaal Barrett-Prehay is one of them and she is determined to use farming to secure early retirement from her nine-to-five job and to create generational wealth for her family.

In a joint conversation with JIS News with her father, Wesley Barrett, Barrett-Prehay said her interest in farming developed from his example.

“We have a registered business, but we have not fully started operation with the business as yet. The name is Jamaican Thyme and Things. My dad has been doing farming for a long time. As I go along and I’m working with my father, I get more and more excited. I go on the farm and I bring my phone and I record and him teach me what is a yam eye, how fi kotch it pon di yam bank and it’s just so interesting to me to learn and to grow from it,” she said.

Barrett, who turns 73 this November, hails from Garden Hall, Alexandria in St Ann and has been farming since he was 13. With 60 years of knowledge and experience, the proud father has mastered yam production on his farm.

“I farm mainly cash crops – sweet pepper, cabbage, yam, potato and carrots. The last time I reap yam I did around 170 banks of yam and I still have more to plant. I didn’t weigh all of them but I reap about 800 to 900 pounds of yam,” he said.

Inspired by her father and on the hunt for opportunities to earn more, Barrett-Prehay decided to explore the occupation that was a crucial part of her upbringing.

“The nine-to-five will not do it. It won’t cut it. Most people will know that you need to supplement your income or just have something to be passionate about. My father has always been farming. I always knew that that is what he does and I never really had an interest until you’re exploring, going through your mind and I’m like, well, why not?” she said.

That decision led her to team up with her mother and grandmother to export thyme to Panama.

“That is where the business got its name from, Jamaican Thyme and Things, which we started to do maybe a year or two ago. My grandma sells it over there in Panama in the market. So, I got used to the agricultural space from having to call the farmers in St Elizabeth to buy the thyme, picking up the thyme, having to dry and package it to send it off, that is where my interest really started. In doing that and seeking opportunities, I just decided to join in with Daddy,” Barrett-Prehay said.

With access to land in the parish of her birth, she has set her sights on helping her father expand, for which Barrett is welcoming, as he is very willing to share the best practices he has amassed from his experiences.

“With diseases, that’s where you lose your crop. You have to know how to plant your crops… so I keep moving the ground, moving the ground. If you plant it one place every time, then it’s going to die. But I keep moving it,” he said.

“If you plant it same place, then the food burns in the land. It burns beneath the earth because the soil is old. But if you plant it in new soil then it comes fresh; that’s why we keep moving it,” he added.

Barrett, who also sells his produce in the Browns Town Market, has used his skills in caring for his plants to sustain one of the yam varieties that has been heavily impacted by yam rust disease – the sweet yam.

“Sweet yam is so scarce now and not a lot of people have it. But I still had it, planted it and I carried a lot to Brown’s Town a couple weeks ago. People love it a lot and they rush it because it is not plentiful. I have my sweet yam head for about twenty years now,” he said.

Barrett-Prehay, who is also a mother to a three-year-old, said her daughter is very active on the farm and has shown interest in emulating her and her grandfather.

“She dung inna di grung wid we, have on her shoes full a red dirt. She dung deh wid we siddung pon bucket, and we have cows and goats on the land and she’s learning the whole thing, and she pick off her papa peas an a ask ‘what’s that Mommy’ and I tell her ‘leave your papa stuff’. It is a whole experience,” she said.

Inspired by her father and fuelled to provide a lasting and meaningful future for her daughter, Barrett-Prehay hopes to fully transition into farming, especially with the intention of being part of the sector’s preservation.

“Not many young people are interested in farming. It is basically dying with our parents and with the internet age, most people are looking in that direction in terms of business and how to make money. I recently realised that doesn’t have to be the case. You can literally learn from older persons and the agricultural space is quite lucrative. You can grow and build it into a successful business,” she said.

“Honestly, within the next few months, this is something that I plan to go into full time. I want this to retire me from my nine-to-five job and for me to have the same level of excitement about the agricultural space as the years go by, make it into a family business and make it more than just a hand-to-mouth thing, so that we can eventually export yams,” Barrett-Prehay said.

-JIS