Warming up to cold storage

WESTERN BUREAU:

Local farmers are optimistic that Jamaica’s agriculture sector will thrive if the Government follows through on its commitment to build additional cold storage facilities across the island. With plans set in motion for 2025, the creation of these facilities is expected to enhance food security and stabilise market prices, despite the challenges posed by unpredictable weather patterns, especially in recent years.

Cold storage helps extend the shelf life, nutritional value, and quality of agricultural produce.

In December, Agriculture Minister Floyd Green announced that a $100-million deal had been signed to construct a state-of-the-art cold storage facility in Kirkvine, Manchester. The initiative is being jointly funded by the Jamaica Social Investment Fund and the Rural Agricultural Development Authority.

“We are setting up storage that will be about 3,700 square feet, which is about ten 40-foot containers, so that farmers will be able to bring in their produce, store it, and send it off to the market, and reduce the issues that we have when we have an oversupply on the market,” Green recently explained to The Sunday Gleaner.

Plans are also being finalised to refurbish the Coleyville cold storage facility in another part of Manchester, and the ministry intends to establish 30 solar-powered modular facilities across the country within the next five years, starting with four in 2025, Green said.

The facilities will be managed by the Agro-Investment Corporation, the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS), local farmers’ associations, and public-private partnerships, with the aim of turning a profit.

boost productivity

While consumers may not realise the scope of these facilities, Orando White, a yam farmer in Manchester, believes that this addition to the local agriculture industry can boost productivity since farmers will be more confident in their sales.

According to White, some local farmers are very concerned about the fluctuation in market prices amid climate interruptions and other factors.

“Any farmer would say that pricing is one of the major points of concern because what you find is that the input remains the same, but when it comes to the output, that is where the problem is. You may find that this season is good because you get a good price for yam, and in another few weeks, you get peanuts for it. That is one of the more discouraging factors that limit productivity. So this will be a great input towards assisting farmers to earn better prices for their produce,” White told The Sunday Gleaner.

He also pointed out that the facilities will benefit consumers, as they will provide a steady supply of produce even during adverse weather conditions.

White cited Hurricane Beryl’s impact last July, which caused severe damage to around 23,040 hectares of cropland and led to a loss of $4.73 billion in agricultural revenue.

“We have seen an increase in the destruction of produce from natural disasters over the past couple of months, and so if we are to use that as a guide, it is saying to us that unless we prepare adequate storage, then we are heading for trouble,” White reasoned.

“The [facilities] would also help us with food security because if there is a glut on the market, we can also stock up on what is in abundance for when we have a shortage because of a natural disaster,” White further detailed.

significant losses

last year

Courtney Walcott, a farmer from Zion, Trelawny, is also hopeful about the planned cold storage facilities. Walcott is one of many local farmers who sustained significant losses last year after his two fields were severely destroyed during the passage of Hurricane Beryl. He lost more than four acres of papaya, plantain, and banana plants. He estimated the loss at more than $8 million.

“The cold storage will benefit all of us and maybe mi will get more sales, too. It is a very good idea and more people will want to go into farming because pak choi, callaloo and cabbage need cold storage, so this will encourage more farmers,” said Walcott.

Meanwhile, JAS President Lenworth Fulton told The Sunday Gleaner that the development of these cold storage facilities will reduce farmers’ “post-harvest loss”, which he attributes to inappropriate handling and storage. He is hoping it will also allow Jamaica to reduce the importation of produce.

“I think it is an excellent idea because we are suffering, as farmers, from what I describe as post-harvest loss. That means we bring the crop to fruition, but because we don’t have good handling and storage, we are losing up to 40 per cent of our produce, which we can’t afford. It is a good developmental idea and I hope it will come to fruition. The farmers certainly need it,” said Fulton.

In 2011, then-Agriculture Minister Dr Christopher Tufton announced plans to renovate the ageing Coleyville yam-packing warehouse. It was announced that farmers in Trelawny, Manchester and Clarendon would benefit from a fully equipped 7,000-square foot cold storage facility to store, package and distribute their goods. The project carried a $34-million price tag and was scheduled to be completed the same year. That project was never completed, and the Government changed in early 2012.

Fulton told The Sunday Gleaner that based on his 50-year farming experience, the Coleyville cold storage plant failed due to excessive electricity prices.

high energy bill

“It used to run very well, but one of the problems was the high energy bill. We used to store thousands of tonnes of Irish potatoes there and slowly release them to the market to prevent heavy importation. However, the big demise of the Christiana Potato Growers Association was that the bills were massive. The Ministry of Agriculture was helping them to pay the bill, but the ministry did not have the resources to continue doing it,” Fulton recalled.

The JAS head also believes that the facilities will help the country’s Irish potato output as the tuber requires special storage conditions.

In December, the Government announced a $100-million commitment to support 4,000 Irish potato growers under the National Irish Potato Programme, as local demand for Irish potatoes continues to rise, with consumption estimated at 21,000 tonnes per year.

“But if you do not have storage like in Coleyville, our parochial markets and supermarkets cannot take off that bulk within the time that farmers would have them without storage. With the storage, we can ramp up production with a guarantee to farmers that we will take their goods and slowly release it to the market,” Fulton said.

He further stated that this approach can be taken with other crops at the proposed Kirkvine facility.

“In terms of Kirkvine, the major crops down there are watermelon and cantaloupe, so they need cold storage. Melon is a terminal crop – once you start to reap it, within a couple of weeks, you have to reap them all or they will spoil, but if you put them in cold storage, you can have them for another six months to slowly release into the market. If you have excess yellow yam, you can do some storage of it. The other yams like Lucea, negro yam and sweet yam … have good shelf life. There is this yellow yam, which is one of the most delicious ones – the black whisp. It spoils very easily.

“In other words, as our agriculture [sector] develops, cold storage is an integral input into the value chain,” Fulton said.

At the same time, Green told The Sunday Gleaner that the St Mary Multi-Purpose Cooperative Cold Storage Facility in Interboreale, St Mary, is the perfect example of a farmer-led model.

“We do have a good farmer-led model in St Mary. We helped put in some cold storage facilities and they manage it. They take from the farmers and have a distribution channel to retail. Based on the shared model, once they get paid, the farmers get paid and that has been going well in St Mary,” said the minister.

Green said that work has already commenced on the Coleyville facility.

“That storage was established years ago, but never really functioned in a sustained way, largely because of energy costs associated with the operation of cold storage in Jamaica. The first thing we did last year, through funding provided by JSIF, was we brought in a consultant to look at the storage, look at a redesign and a renewable energy system that could work. All of that work has been done so we plan to go to tender for that project this year.”

rochelle.clayton@gleanerjm.com