NOT the norm by any means, a third-year student at the College of Agriculture, Science, and Education (CASE), Gavin Coley hopes to make big waves in the Jamaican agriculture sector through agro-processing and beekeeping.

Coley was introduced to agriculture at a young age by his grandmother who raised livestock and tended to her crops. As he became involved in the field he noticed that there was much more to learn about agriculture and livestock farming, he said.

“Most of our animals would usually get sick, and we couldn’t help. We didn’t know what to do so we would just let them die or they would just be sick for a very long time, and it was frustrating sometimes,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

When he graduated from Cornwall College the now 20-year-old said he immediately enrolled at the Knockalva Agricultural School to learn more about the industry and help his grandmother in the fields. After completing his studies in agro-processing and business management he took out a student loan and enrolled at CASE, where he is currently studying agro-production and systems management.

Gavin Coley utilises smoke to calm the bees during a hive inspection.

On a rove through Portland, Coley was seen tending to bees at an apiary operated by CASE. He said it is an extracurricular activity he was introduced to at his school that nurtured his love for the bee population. However, his first interaction stung.

“When we just started, one of the boxes turned over and we didn’t know so we were just here chopping the grass — because when we just started over here was very bushy. We didn’t know that when we go to the apiary you have to wear two pants until after, and we got about a couple of 100 stings that day,” he recalled, laughing.

“Another time when we just started off, a bee went under one of the other guy’s veils and he ran down to the light post at the end of the street,” he shared.

However, over time, as he has studied and cared for the bees he said he has grown to learn about their importance.

“The bees are very important in pollination all over the world; they keep our plants growing. And without these plants, eventually, we’ll have less food security, and food security is very important — it’s the most important thing in agriculture. Without the vegetation that the bees help us to pollinate we would lose grassland, fruits, and vegetables, and it would really affect our food security, leaving us with less options for food,” he said.

He noted that though small, each bee has a significant role, and one cannot survive without the other.

“The queen has to lay the eggs, and she lays about up to 1500 eggs a day. The workers have to visit those eggs and visit the larvae up to 10,000 times a day to feed them, and the drones are there to mate with the queen so them not mating with the queen would give us an infertile queen or she would just have bad laying habits if our drones weren’t active,” he shared.

“If the bees leave, then a couple of years from now everything will be gone, so we have to protect them,” he stressed.

With one year left at CASE, Coley said he has big plans to start his own apiary, get into agro-processing, and work in the Ministry of Agriculture to help Jamaica achieve sustainable living.

Gavin Coley, a third-year student at College of Agriculture, Science and Education (CASE), has big dreams of entering Jamaica’s agro-processing sector.

Agro-processing is the transforming of raw materials and intermediate products from agriculture, forestry, and fisheries into usable products for food, feed, fuel, or other industrial uses.

“I’ve been wanting to go into honey production because I love beekeeping. Honey has a lot of uses. It is a natural sweetener and it has medical uses — even the wax from the honey and the frames can be used to make candles so I really want to explore that,” he told the Observer.

Coley said that while agriculture is not the first career path for many young Jamaicans, it is an industry that is extremely beneficial to any country and should be explored more by young people.

“It’s what I love, and I try to influence my peers as well to do it,” he said.

“A lot of the food we have here in Jamaica is imported, and we have a problem with food security because a lot of people not doing farming. Agriculture is all around us, and it provides what we eat…you can just grow stuff and eat. You don’t have to buy every thing. With livestock farming you can produce your own meat and animals; you have vegetables that you can grow and have your own crops and just stay at home and eat what you grow,” insisted Coley.

He recalled an interaction with his grandmother during which she sprinkled a handful of sorrel in their backyard just moments before it rained. A few weeks later, he said they could barely walk in the area because the sorrel had grown in abundance.

“It just takes one seed. You can get a fruit tree, you can get a plant, and you can use it to produce something else,” he said as he urged Jamaicans to grow what they eat.