Morris Cargill

MANY YEARS ago, just after World War II I got bitten with the idea that farming in Jamaica would be a welcome and tranquil way of life in contrast to the strains and stresses of the war years. I soon learned better.

My first sharp lesson was when in 1950 everything that I had planted on my recently acquired farm was destroyed by a hurricane.

But that was the least of it. I soon discovered that it was the annoying habit of plants to contract expensive diseases. My farm was a mixed farm.

Healthy life

All the old bananas had died of Panama Disease. Replaced by the Cavendish, this variety turned out to be particularly vulnerable to Sikatoka, (leaf spot) which involved the considerable expense of constant spraying. I planted citrus too, only to discover that some creatures ate the roots of it and that slugs ate the foliage. A lot of my coconut trees started to die of Lethal Yellowing. My milch cows involved me in a constant battle against Mastitis. On top of all this, matters were complicated by praedial larceny.

Farming nonetheless was a pleasant and healthy life, and the workers on my farm were a delight to deal with. To some extent this compensated one for earning very little money. I had only one crop which gave me no trouble either with disease or praedial larceny. This was a small acreage that I had in sugar cane. It seemed that this was one crop which did not suffer from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Even a hurricane was not able to do it any considerable or permanent damage.

It has been a long time now since I gave up the battle against disease, beetles and breeze. To my horror, however, I now read that sugar cane, which was the one crop which had refrained from driving its planter to destruction, seems to be suffering from a major and serious disease. Cane farmers at estates across the island are reporting a massive unexplainable decline in their crop yields.

This seems to be as a result of some kind of new disease which has not been previously experienced. I can only imagine that the sugar cane has at last decided not to be left behind in its revenge against those who cultivate it.

Of course the unfortunate farmer faces other problems, including droughts and floods. Then even when he succeeds in spite of a multiplicity of troubles he often has to cope with seriously declining prices. Look at what is happening to the unfortunate growers of bananas.

Ganja and sex

Looking back upon my nearly 30 years of farming in Jamaica, I sometimes wonder why people bother with it. Obviously we all have to eat, and were it not for dogged and persistent farming we would starve. So, I suppose, it is our instinct for self-preservation and survival that drives us to farming rather then choosing something less difficult like selling motorcars or television sets.

To return however to the present threat against sugar cane I fear greatly that we are now about to pay the price of relying upon that crop which brought riches to some and slavery to many. Neve rtheless if sugar cane fails us, what on earth are we to do?

There is bauxite of course, tourism, ganja and sex. The last suffers from a lot of diseases too and ganja suffers greatly from the policies of Big Brother. Tourism is good stuff, but whimsical, so long as we refrain from polluting our beaches and harassing our visitors.

Farming however still enjoys an occasional ray of hope. In spite of globalisation and free trade we have now managed to devise an ingenious method of dodging the danger of the imports of dumped food by setting up all sorts of elaborate protections against those items of food with "cancer-producing factors". If dioxin had not been invented we would have had to invent it. It may yet stand us in good stead.

I might finally add that one good aspect of farming is that it enables one to commit minor frauds upon the Commissioner of Income Tax. For example, many years ago, I charged all my Christmas drinks one year as paint for my dairy-shed. My sense of shame, which I have tried to suppress for years without success, prevented me from repeating the operation. However, I offer the idea to a new breed of farmers who may not be similarly handicapped.