By Damion Mitchell, Staff Reporter
From left: James de Roux, Custos of Clarendon, Senator Norman Grant, president of the Jamaica Agricultural Society, and Lady Cooke, wife of Governor-General Sir Howard Cooke, admire 'Air West', a makeshift aircraft in the Westmoreland parish pavilion at the 52nd annual Denbigh Agri-Industrial Show on Sunday.
- IAN ALLEN/Staff Photographer
THE JAMAICA Agricultural Society (JAS), Westmoreland, continued its dominance at the annual Denbigh Agri-Industrial Show in Clarendon last Monday, winning the Percival Broderick (Senior) trophy as champion exhibitors for the 15th consecutive year.
From the very outset, it was clear that Westmoreland would emerge among the winning parishes for its display of local produce neatly arranged in a makeshift silver aircraft dubbed 'Air West' a telling story that the agriculture sector will 'take off' if local produce are supported.
The display was also representative of the theme for Denbigh 2004: 'We Are What We Eat, So Let's Eat Jamaican'.
Westmoreland also shared prizes with St. Ann for co-operative community effort and home economics and won a trophy for its support in the agribusiness industry.
Clarendon was announced first runner-up to the champion parish and St. Ann second runner-up, with St. Ann winning prizes for youth involvement in agriculture, innovativeness and resourcefulness, environmental sustainability, educational input and marketing input and for its feature demonstration on how to productively use mined-out lands.
MAXIMISE PRODUCTION
According to Wentworth Mitchell, deputy parish manager of the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA), St. Ann, his team was committed to identifying ways to maximise the production on the farm at profitable levels.
He said as a result of the displays RADA may be developing new programmes for the farmers in the parish.
The demonstration had included a crop and a livestock farm complete with a bio-digester to transform the refuse from livestock animals into methane (cooking gas) while the nitrogen would be used to manure the fruits and vegetables cultivated on the farm.
