Hugh Martin
While others roam the world for wealth/and seek the pot at the rainbow's end
Give me the land and unfailing health/and I'll keep my people fed.
(Anonymous)
THE YEAR is 1969. The Agricultural Information Service, Ministry of Agriculture, is planning the production of the first edition of the Farmers Calendar. Director Ray McKinley wants appropriate quotations for each month. Publications Officer B. McClair Hutchinson, starts off with Thomas Jefferson's famous "Let the farmer forevermore be honoured." He manages to find 10 others and languishes for the twelfth.
Then another member of staff who shall remain anonymous comes up with the verse above which he claims is the farmer's mantra. It finds favour and is included in the first Farmers Calendar. And why not? After all, there is a farmer's hymn that is sung at the start of every Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS) meeting. The first line of this hymn declares,
"We plough the fields and scatter the good seed on the land." Someone should write a replacement for we have stopped scattering good seed on the land since we've learned the economic benefits of orderly planting, spacing and controlled plant population.
The Farmers Calendar was a huge hit from the start and has remained a big favourite to the present day. Its success is due in large measure to the fact that it celebrates each year with first class photography the best of what the farming sector has to offer while at the same time providing valuable information on various crops, livestock and farming systems and technologies. In a way, as a precursor to Farmers Month, it has served as a honouring of the farmer for his contribution to the development of the country.
Last Wednesday, Farmers Month 2006 was launched by the very upbeat Minister of Agriculture and Lands, Roger Clarke, who now, in addition to regaining the land portfolio, has once again been given control of the Sugar Company of Jamaica, which was under the Minister of Finance since its re-acquisition a decade or so ago.
PM'S SINCERITY
And if the farming sector had doubted for a minute Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller's sincerity when she promised to make agriculture one of her top priorities such doubt must have been blown away with Mr. Clarke's revelation that the water portfolio was also assigned to him. What this has done is to lift agriculture to super ministry status and given the farmers of the country a new hope that they are really being recognised.
The JAS singled out one institution and one farmer for honouring at the launch; the Dinthill Technical High School for its outstanding contribution to agricultural education and Mr. Arthur Lawson, Westmoreland farmer whose fiery interventions at JAS and cane farmers meetings have become prized reportage for press, radio and television each year. Mr. Lawson, an octogenarian, is being honoured for over 60 years service in the field of agriculture and for 16 years unbroken service on the board of the JAS as representative for his parish.
The JAS has been criticised in the past for insisting on a month for farmers. Why not then a month for masons and lawyers and taxi drivers? And what about shopkeepers and doctors or politicians and contractors? My response remains, make a case for them and let's look at it.
As for farmers I have no problem whatsoever. Agriculture is the riskiest of all endeavours and the farmer the most beleaguered of all entrepreneurs, being subject to the vagaries of the weather, to numerous pests and diseases and to those who like to reap where they did not sow. And if I can be forgiven for quoting myself in a piece two years ago:
"No one should begrudge him this accolade of a month in his honour. He earns it every time he ploughs a field or plants a seed. He does this knowing the odds are against him. If the rains don't come he is burnt out. If they come for too long he is washed up. Too heavy winds and he could be blown away.
"But the weather could be kind and he could survive the ravages of pests and diseases to anticipate a bounteous harvest. And then the cruelest cut of all - be robbed by the praedial thief.
"The farmer plants by faith. This is the season when his faith is strongest. This is the month of his honouring. Let us honour him."
Hugh Martin is a communication consultant and farm broadcaster who may be reached at humar@cwjamaica.com
