George Henry, Gleaner Writer

Isaac Cohen working on his farm in Sanguinetti, Clarendon. - photo by george henry

SPALDINGS, Clarendon:

Isaac Italbert Cohen is now 77 years old. He has been involved in farming from the tender age of 14 years and has been loving it ever since. He told Farmers Weekly that he wanted to become a trained teacher, but because of a lack of financial support he was unable to fulfil his dream.

"My parents did not have the necessary funds to send me to college to study, so I had to walk and find little work here and there, so that I could do something for myself," related the farmer.

He pointed out that he started farming with a small amount of Lacatan and Robusta banana suckers. When he reaped the first three bunches of the crop, Mr. Cohen said he was able to purchase additional suckers for planting.

Better days

With increased revenue, he added that he was able to purchase coffee seedlings, which also became one of his favourite crops. Today, Mr. Cohen owns about five acres of land on which he cultivates his crops in Sanguinetti. However, he declared that he has had better days in farming.

The veteran farmer noted that he used to plant several acres of banana and coffee for sale to both the Banana Boxing Plant and the Coffee Industry Board, but a downturn in both crops forced him to scale down his production.

"I was having a good time in the banana business in the '70s and early '80s but when the Government closed down the local boxing plants at Frankfield, Alston and Ritches, we as farmers did not have anywhere to sell the crop and so most of us had to get out of banana production," he explained. "We had to give it to pigs or give them away, because we were losing thousands of dollars," the veteran farmer continued.

Mr. Cohen wants Government and the Ministry of Agriculture to send extension officers once more to the farms in the rural parishes.

Mr. Cohen, like many farmers across the island, complained that the cost of inputs was very expensive and they needed assistance to return to serious food production.