Hugh Martin
MR. CHARLES Gilpin-Hudson, in his Letter to the Editor on Wednesday, June 21, suggested that the under-performance in the agricultural sector that I spoke about in my column the previous week was due to "pathogenic problems".
According to him these cause a lack of vigour in the plant's growth resulting in low yield and therefore high cost per unit of production. He went on to assert that this situation existed not only in sugar cane, but in all the other crops.
It would seem from this that Mr. Gilpin-Hudson is attempting to reintroduce the 'Sick Soil Syndrome' debate made popular by Mark Brooks a few years ago. I had thought that this had been put to rest by the volumes of evidence against it put forward by local scientists and successful farmers.
The fact is that no one denies that some soils after continuous production of one crop over many years accumulate disease pathogens which can adversely affect yields. That is why rotation of crops has been an age-old farming practice used to rid the soil of pathogens which affect only certain types of crops and will not survive in the presence of others. Another age-old technique is to allow the land to lie fallow for an extended period.
In the case of sugar cane not much rotation has taken place and the same land is kept in cane for decades because of the unavailability of enough suitable land to the majority of farmers. In addition, fields are very often allowed to 'ratoon' for more than the recommended five years before being replanted.
This is because yields are sometimes still satisfactory or the farmer doesn't have the funds needed to replant. Most farmers are aware of the risks involved in not rotating crops or in the timely replanting of fields, but some persist anyway and hope for the best until yields fall off so badly they are forced to either replant or abandon the crop altogether.
The condition of reducing cane yields on over-used land is known as Sugarcane Yield Decline and is the subject of a study on small farmers' holdings being conducted by the Sugar Industry Research Institute. This study is part of a larger project to help small cane farmers improve their efficiency to become more competitive with those of other cane producing countries.
STUDY OF FARM MODULES
The other components of the project include the establishment of drip and centre pivot irrigation systems; the production and evaluation of new varieties; the training of farmers in new technology, agronomy and farm management practices, and a study of farm modules that can assist farmers to operate more viable enterprises.
Three of these components were on display a couple of weeks ago on the holdings of small farmers in Clarendon. It was at a field day put on by the Jamaica Association of Sugar Technologists in collaboration with SIRI to celebrate Sugar Week.
Farmers described the remarkable increase in yields obtained from their fields as a result of the timely application of irrigation water by the drip and centre pivot systems.
One farmer told me that the poor yields obtained on the Monymusk estates which resulted in the factory producing less than a third of its capacity last crop was due to lack of irrigation water when needed. According to him, many of the pumps that were knocked out by Hurricane Ivan two years ago were still un-repaired, so the canes just died from drought.
At the same time fields under the project's irrigation systems were producing at more than double the national average and in striking contrast to what they produced before the use of the efficient systems.
IMPRESSED
Chairman of the All-Island Jamaica Cane Farmers' Association, Allan Rickards, was so impressed with the results that he declared that the project, funded by the United Nation's agency, the Common Fund for Commodities, was the most important agricultural project around today.
To the extent that it has demonstrated that there is nothing terribly wrong with our soils but that the timely and well-managed application of water and other inputs is all that's needed for improved agricultural production; Mr. Rickards is probably right.
As for Mr. Gilpin-Hudson; it is not that his contention is without merit. It is simply that he overestimates the contribution of soil pathogens to the decline in agricultural production and underplays the value of good farm management.
Hugh Martin is a communication consultant and farm broadcaster at humar@cwjamaica.com.
