Green-cane harvesting
The award for 'ridiculous announcements' should go to the Sugar Company of Jamaica (SCJ) and a supporting award to CVM TV. The announcement made with great fanfare was the introduction of green-cane harvesting. Duh - this is not new.
As a boy growing up in Hanover, and when I started working in Clarendon in the late 1960s green-cane harves-ting was the method used by the Delisser brothers, Sevens Estates, New Yarmouth and Monymusk. In fact, over the past 25 years, many persons have been pointing out that green-cane harvesting is better for the environment, the ratooning crop, soil productivity and cane juice content.
Finally, SCJ has seen the light and has reintroduced green-cane harvesting on a limited basis. I hope, and so do the citizens of Portmore, that the burning of sugar cane will end shortly.
The more things change, the more they remain the same!
- Basil P. Fernandez, OD, 31 Bronze Road, Kingston 20
Bygone estates
I read with some interest, tinged with some sadness, that the Fairy Hill Estate of the late Errol Flynn is being put on the block after his ownership for over 50 years. I am particularly disturbed because the estate has been, in my view, one of the beauty spots of Jamaica; Bloody Bay in Negril used to be the other.
Fairy Hill was important in the economy of Portland along with Muirton Estate and Fred M. Jones estate. Not only were they contributors to our export trade and our domestic market but they determined the social milieu of the areas they straddled.
So few of us seem to be interested in our real history; it would suit us to understand these economic entities and what they did or did not do. It is like losing a part of one's culture to see what is happening to places like Palmyra, Rose Hall, Bloody Bay and others. Concrete structures cannot replace the beauty of those areas of our country.
- Middleton Wilson, middletonwilson@bellsouth.net, Miami, Florida, Via Go-Jamaica
On NHF
I am directing the following to the attention of the prime minister: Dear Chief Servant,
I see that you are looking at the NHF benefits. I sincerely hope that this is with a view to improving the benefits and not to discontinue this wonderful programme.
This is a programme that is a great help to senior citizens and you must be aware of the fact of the very steep rise in the cost of living and what it would mean to all of us if we had to find the full amount to cover our drug bills.
As one gets older, chances are our health will decline and hence the need for drugs to help us along the way. To take away this benefit from us would be a major blow and I only hope that you are aware of the trauma it would cause.
- Barbara Cover, Kingston 6
