Food For the Poor sows self-help seed

Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

Food For the Poor's (FFP's) Agriculture Department - all of two members strong, Norvel Bedward and Dwayne Bent - is sowing the seed of self-help across the island, supporting backyard farming, goat herding, apiculture, and even ornamental fish rearing.

Some of the seeds are literally sown at Food For the Poor's expansive facilities outside Spanish Town, St Catherine. Bedward and Bent gave The Sunday Gleaner a quick tour of the plant nursery where seedlings are nurtured for distribution. Guava, apple, sweet pepper, tomato and cauliflower are among the crops to come, which are showered with nutrients, the pair explaining that persons who receive homes from the organisation are given a tree seedling as well.

In the main, though, Food For the Poor's farming projects are done far from its base, and the pair of agriculturists does less of the nurturing of crops themselves, instead, grooming the farmers and recipients of the organisation's largesse.

Bent explains that FFP went into agriculture as the Rural Economic Agriculture Programme (REAP) in 2003, funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). That organisation provided food subsidies for small farmers, such as rice, peas and oil, allowing them to spend less on food for themselves.

Reaping success

That contract in 2008 and, because REAP had been so successful, FFP decided to continue in agriculture. It did not hurt that during REAP, seeds and tools had been received from a donor in Florida. These were used to establish backyard farming projects in the Angel of Hope homes for children across the island, schools, churches and homes for the elderly and infirm. The tools included machetes and files, pickaxes, shovels, hoes, forks, water pumps, rotor tillers, waterboots, and raincoats.

The agriculture department has been well established since then and there seems to be a high level of consistency. Bedward said: "In everything you find you have delinquent persons, but they are usually very happy with what they get. We have a very good relationship, through Food For the Poor."

Bedward explained that FFP also develops relationships with partners, such as the Rural Agriculture Development Agency (RADA) and farmers' organisations such as one they have worked with in St Catherine. In a peas project, FFP provided the seeds and RADA contributed the fertiliser. "The farmers were able to donate 20 per cent of what they produced to Food For the Poor and sell 80 per cent," Bedward said.