BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - ST KITTS has been blessed with fertile soil, good rainfall and good weather for growing and cultivating food crops of vegetables and fruit. Indeed not only were the lands able to sustain agricultural produce for human consumption but for almost four hundred years sugar cane was grown as the number one foreign exchange earner.
Sea Island cotton was also grown as a cash crop until the late fifties to early sixties when its demise was due to the invention and intervention of man-made fibers such as rayon and nylon which became the new generations’ material for the clothing industries.
Our local farmers were of two types - on the one hand there were those who farmed as a business and those who were subsistence farmers. The regular farmers did their job consistently day in and day out eking out a living to maintain themselves and their families, toiling on lands on hillsides where no sugar cane was grown or in some ghaut sides that would flood during heavy rains destroying their crops.
The subsistence farmer, on the other hand, did not depend solely on farming but used his produce to make up his finances which he would have earned from other commercial activities such as fishing.
Farming is not by any means an easy job. Many farmers battled day in and day out fighting pest diseases, stray animals that would destroy their crops, predial larceny, and inclement weather such as drought, incessant rain, hurricanes and floods.
Some farmers have even lost their lives protecting their crops from thieves such Dan Martin who was murdered in the mountain of Banta Ghaut as far back as the nineteen fifties.
The hoe and large agricultural forks were tools of their trade to till the land and weed their crops of dasheen, eddoes sweet potatoes, yams, bananas, pumpkins, herbs (chives) and thyme and plants of herbal and medicinal properties.
The times have changed; the methods of farming have undergone serious changes since the demise of the sugar industry. For some it also meant the closure of a chapter in our developmental history with regards to its meaning for us a people that were brought to these islands to work as slaves; this system meant that huge profits were made for the owners of the plantations on which the slaves worked in terrible and inhumane conditions that often resulted in disfiguration through beatings and even death.
There are those for whom it would mean a new beginning, an upward movement by claiming the land as their birthright and their natural inheritance after years of sacrifice and inhuman treatment meted out by former masters. And there are yet those who feel that the time has come for repatriation.
However, we the people, are looking at where we are and where are we going with our land for it seems to me that we are selling our very patrimony back to our former masters with feeble lip service to the price of blood, sweat and tears, and the broken bodies of our forefathers who suffered thus in their time.
It now begs the question – “How must Beta Douglas feel having been placed in the Stocks out in the open sun not for one day, week or for a month but for a very long time - and being fed and watered by friends during her period of incarceration… but for what?”
Her crime was leaving the master’s child in the care of someone else while she went to administer to her own child that had taken sick. What a way to treat forefathers? Those who are willing to sell or give away our patrimony should consider the price that was paid by the blood, sweat, toil and tears and death of those who slaved and laboured for what we have today.
Vast areas of our land are presently under cultivation by our local farmers growing various crops with modern equipment that comes with a heavy financial price.
Farmers are now preparing land using tractors, harrow and plough. They are even planting by tractors; they can now have machines to dry their peanuts and spray their crops but these implements do come at a price, even though they would enable the farmer to work less strenuously than farmers of the past but with greater efficiency and proficiency thus reducing cost over time.
To some we are only scratching the surface of our farming potential and unlimited possibilities of earning potential. Yes indeed the sky can truly become the limit but not when the odds for a farmer’s success is whether or not he has the ability to see his crops come to fruition without being marauded.
His enemies are the monkeys, pigs and the stealers of crops by men. Cattle and other small ruminants of goats and sheep are not as prevalent as before as more of the farmers are fencing in their animals. It is the pigs and monkeys - monkeys that are non-nationals, if I may say so, but they seem to be occupying every village and town in our Federation.
It is difficult for home owners who work hard growing fruits and vegetables in their back yard but who are finding it difficult to reap a banana, a mango, an avocado pear or whatever they would be growing in their fenced yards.
It almost seems that a monkey has the right to be here more than mortals. Monkeys are not good for our Federation. It used to be said in the US that a good Indian was a dead Indian! In the case of St Kitts and Nevis that good monkey is a dead monkey.
Monkeys are not the only scourge of our local farmers. In the seventies and eighties a number of pig farmers existed on the island of St. Kitts all around the island. Most were small scale farmers with small herds that were kept in small pens with swill, along with natural plants fruits and vegetables, that was collected from restaurants, hotels and from neighbours.
Yet they were a few much larger pig farmers that kept much larger herds in better and larger pens consisting of concrete floors with running water, thus offering a reasonable and good condition in which the animals were kept.
The feed used on such farms were imported compounded feed that would supply to the animals a well-balanced feed with all the basic nutrition that would enable the farmer to produce healthy and good quality pork for a meat loving country.
However, such farms in their endeavour to produce good pork, had to manage their operation with diligence as the cost of production depended on a number of factors such as good breeding stock…that is, having animals that had good mothering qualities to give the farmer a reasonable litter of pigs; they must also have good features such as having a profitable converting rate of food eaten to the rate of growth from birth to become a porker ready to be food for the table.
It was never easy to keep the animals in top condition and some farmers have been known to release their pigs to run wild thus beginning the first propagation of so called wild pigs - a term which is frightening for many of our people.
Such pigs are a menace to our farmers as these are roaming all around the island of St Kitts from Old Road to Tabernacle, from Capisterre to Phillips` Mountain, from North to South. Many farmers are crying from the devastation that these roaming pigs are causing.
The pigs are not small; some are huge bores with tusks that can be a danger to humans if cornered; sows that can weigh up to hundreds of pounds; litters that have separated themselves from parents and forming their own gangs of destruction - all these animals were once owned by individuals who at times have deliberately released the animals when times became hard to maintain such pigs. Others would often escape their owners, were never recaptured and have become members of the band of animal ploughs destroying the crops of our hard working farmers.
The time has come for action. Monkeys at one time were controlled by government paid rangers or the estate provided a similar service that gave protection and control over the monkeys.
In every community whether it is in the villages throughout our Federation, in the towns or residential areas, home owners have no respite from them and our farmers have no respite from the pigs.
The Army can be gainfully employed and they can feed themselves along with other institutions of government such as the Prison and the Cardin Home. All these institutions can benefit from the meat provided from these animals that are causing devastation to our farming communities.
Indeed the time is now! Please help the farmers!
