Latest News
Stepping up to the plate - Eastern Jamaica farmers want support to boost production after Melissa
November 17, 2025
An elderly woman recently walked onto Christopher Wright's farm in Scotts Run, Portland, asking the only question many Jamaicans are now quietly struggling with, "Sir, you have anything down there can eat?"
Wright searched what was left of his land and found just one four-hand bunch of banana.
"She said, 'You selling me?' I said, 'No man, gwaan go eat'," he recalled. "I feel displaced to know that things like this is happening. If we had enough planted, we would have had enough to feed."
Scenes like this now shape everyday life across the Hector's River and Scotts Run farming belts, even as Prime Minister Andrew Holness urges eastern Jamaica to ramp up production to offset the crippling agricultural losses in the west. But in the fields, recovery is far from simple.
Wright, who has been farming for seven years, said the hurricane destroyed about 70 per cent of his crops.
"I lost about 4,000 bananas and plantain, combined around 9,000," he told THE STAR. "I lost the entire coffee crop, and this is the first time it ever bare like this. I have over 200 dozen nutmeg inside the house right now, and that is what's left of it."
Before Hurricane Melissa, Wright steadily expanded his farm from small cocoa plots into plantain, coconut, chocolate, nutmeg and other crops. Farming, he said, has become both his livelihood and an example to younger people.
"This is to show young people that they can do it. All they need is a start."
POST MELISSA
Since the storm, he has replanted more than two dozen plantain suckers and used sticks to help banana trees regain strength. Yet the uncertainty ahead weighs heavily. "People now are asking, 'You don't have any banana? You don't have any plantain?' And I can't reap the cocoa.
"They are ready now eno, but if I draw it, what will happen? Worst days are coming," warned Wright.
Still, he believes eastern Jamaica has the capacity to bolster national food supply.
"We have lands so yes, we can fill the slots," he said, adding that St Thomas, in particular, is rich with arable plots.
But he stressed that young farmers need structural support.
"There are some mechanisms we will have to put in place to assist the younger farmers. In my opinion, you have people who will work. The only way to move forward is to put our hands to the wheel and go into farming. The country needs it."
However, the terrain limits what can grow quickly.
"You see catch crop, around here we call that three months crop. My farm, I tried that already and it did not work because of the terrain, hills and gully."
Even so, he believes production could increase by about 20 per cent, though "it's hard to get people to work".
Wright said proper planning is crucial if Jamaica is to avoid a deeper food shortfall.
"Proper management and monitoring," he insisted. "When it comes to the education system, when to farm and to get people to understand what is needed, you have to go right down to their level to bring them up to the standard, and that is the challenge."
WIPED OUT EVERYTHING
In the same community, Marvia James, a farmer of more than 10 years, said Melissa wiped out everything she and her daughter, who farms in St Thomas, had planted. "During the hurricane and after I lost all my crops. I lose every food on the farm, no dasheen, no plantains, no bananas," she said, while leading THE STAR team through the small plot of farm land in Scott's Run.
"Weh no tear dung root up. One of the breadfruit tree drop pan the water tank over there, but this is just a small portion of what happen. My daughter biggest farm in St Thomas, everything she lost."
James also lost two goats as floodwaters rose.
"They never tie, but the water come up so high they had to just stay there. Them weak out, so all I had to do was just bury them, couldn't survive," she said.
MONEY REQUIRED
James said plantains and bananas gave her the best returns before the storm, but restarting will require money they do not have.
"We don't have things in place to sell and we going to have to prepare land," she said.
James believes farmers must also change their approach.
"As farmers we have to just come together and get rid of lazy, because most of who seh them a farmer only do it because them know seh benefit is there. In farming yuh just affi see weh yuh can do and make the best outta weh yuh get."
Another farmer, Trevor Murray, who often reports to RADA on behalf of others, said growers are being encouraged to utilise any land available, regardless of size.
"People exporting and the price not as good. Try not to think about the long term alone," he said.
STEPPING UP
Murray supports the Government's proposals for eastern farmers to step up to the plate.
"If we do it, it's a good earning."
He believes eastern Jamaica may need to follow a model similar to St Elizabeth's vegetable-focused system. But even planting material sourced from St Elizabeth took a blow.
"RADA distributes onion seed. When yuh look and see how the hurricane do we scallion, dem beat dung everything to grung," he said. "The prices soon gone back to normal once the crops grow. Any farmer right now probably scared fi plant pan a wide scale."
As the region waits for government support, Wright hopes the country listens to the warnings farmers have been giving.
"It is going to take some time for the country to get back to its normal self. It is going to take some time," he said. "I saw this coming eno, and I keep saying to people, 'come, let's put in the work, because one of the day dem nobody nah go have nothing'. And here it is right at our door."
