$6.3m for Trelawny yam project

Richard Morais, Freelance Writer

WESTERN BUREAU: GOVERNMENT IS planning an assault on tradition in a bid to rescue the export market for yams.

Starting July, $6.3 million is to be spent in Trelawny ­ the parish that accounts for 65 per cent of the tuber produced nationally - to establish minisett technology as the preferred method of cultivation, replacing the yam stick.

Doreen Chen, Member of Parliament representing the parish's southern regions where the yams are grown, says Government's plan is to set up one-acre production plots in almost all the communities of upper Trelawny, in a project to be conducted with 25 farmers.

President of the Trelawny Chapter of the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS), Burt Gordon, is in full support of the new technology and has hailed the plan to educate farmers in its practical application. "It is the only way to go," he said.

The JAS has already been distributing literature on the technique and will be also be putting a model demonstration plot at Hague on the grounds that host the annual Hague Agricultural Show, in order to show the various stages of minisett cultivation.

Minisett technology produces a compact tuber which needs little in the way of preparation for export, whereas the traditional method produces large yams which have to be dissected. A decision by the overseas market to ban imports that are treated by chemicals now used to preserve cut yams have put earnings from the tuber under threat.

Head of the Agricultural Department for the William Knibb Memorial High School, Fulvia Nugent says the minisett method would stamp out the use of chemicals as it produces yams that are void of the projections called fingers and toes. It is these projections that are usually sliced off the tuber in preparation for export and the exposed area treated.

Minisett yams are preferred by the market as they are more pleasing to the eye than the "amputated" tuber, says Mrs. Nugent. The technology also allows the farmer to pre-determine the size yam produced and allows him to tailor his production according to market demand, she said.

MP Chen, pointing to a comprehensive look at yam and its potential, says she has suggested to her colleague Parliamentarians that they consider setting up a Yam Board to streamline overseas marketing. A co-operative agency, adds Mrs. Chen, is already being formed locally to push collectively for better deals for growers.

Presently the farmers, who are without transport, depend heavily on middlemen to get their produce out of the Trelawny hills and to their markets.

Mrs. Chen says, with no alternative, the farmers are often forced to give away their produce, losing heavily in the bargain. Under the prevailing situation, described by the MP as a "rip off", the middlemen get 40 pounds of free yam for every 100 pounds that they buy.

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