Aleith James, Contributor
National Young Champion Farmer, Cornel Henry posing with his trophy at the 53rd staging of the Denbigh Agricultural and Industrial Show on July 31.
CORNEL HENRY, who won the National Young Champion Farmer title, has already made his mark in the agricultural sector.
At the age of 23, the businessman from Highgate, St. Mary, is the owner of 'Fresh Pick' natural juice company, established last year, and is preparing to expand into the international market.
Mr. Henry, who began his operation with the help of a cousin, thinks that young persons can definitely excel in his chosen field.
"We use our papayas to make juices ... and now we're bottling coconut water because we have coconuts on the farm," he said. "We thought, we have all these going to waste (so) why we don't use them ."
Fresh Pick Juice Company was born out of Hi Pride Farms, also operated by Henry, where some 13,000 papaya trees are planted, he told JIS News. The young entrepreneur is also planning to plant another 5,000 trees.
As well, he has a long-stemmed hot pepper operation with some 6,000 plants, which yield approximately 25,000 pounds of peppers per week.
He professes a love for vegetation and confessed that it was this passion which drove him into creating Hi Pride Farms.
"I love fruits and trees and I was really thinking about what could I do to earn some money from this and also I like helping people," he said. "Farming is something that I grew up loving and learning."
PROUD TO HELP
He has 17 employees from the community working on the farm, and four persons in the juice business. He is proud of the fact that at the age of 17 he was able to help four less fortunate members of his community who were provided with food on a Sunday in collaboration with the 'Hot Choice' Youth Club, which he was a part of.
Mr. Henry has a strong farming family background as his grandfathers have been farming for years and he has two cousins who are now involved in the sector. One of them is Paul Henry who helped to propel him into the industry with financial and other support and who has become a partner in his farming operations.
He also gives credit to Deano Stewart, a pharmacist, who gave him his first 2,000 pepper seeds, 1,500 of which he planted and was able to reap 500 to 600 pounds of pepper per week. He also planted one acre of mixed crops, including papaya, broccoli, cabbage, as well as hot and sweet pepper.
The entire papaya cultivation was wiped out by the dreaded Ring Spot disease, but Mr. Henry says he started out again and with hard work, expanded his cultivation to 13 acres. Through the use of a mix of fertilisers and organic material from his 156-head pig farm, as well as some chicken manure, his yield has increased from 4,000 pounds to approximately 7,000 pounds per acre.
Nothing is wasted on his farm as 'rejected' papaya is fed to the pigs.
"It's an awesome feeling to be National Young Champion Farmer," he said. "I'm glad that I can be a role model, so to speak, for younger farmers so that young people can know that it not about dirtying up your hand. At the end of the day, it pays off."
He noted that having started out with nothing, he now owned some 40 acres of land.
"It's about a lot of hard work," He explained. "We keep clean rows between the trees. We don't allow the leaves or papaya to stay on the ground and rot because this encourages Ring Spot disease."
He said he also intends to diversify into sweet potato production for the local and export market and produce puree from the hot peppers for export. And a new venture he has embarked on is the production of hams from his pig farm.
