Revive Montpelier Farms for agro-processing expansion

Claudia Gardner, Gleaner Writer

WESTERN BUREAU:

A retooling of the 2,000-acre Montpelier Citrus Company, which spans Hanover and St James, could, among other things, help to redeem Jamaica's flailing agro-processing sector, as well as sustain Jamaica's school-feeding programme, according to food and agriculture expert, Rayal Hill.

Hill, who is also chairman of the board of the Knockalva Agricultural School in Hanover, says if the government-owned facility were to be rehabilitated, it could become the agro-processing centre and purchasing station for western Jamaica as not only is it the largest such facility within the region, but is also one of a handful of its kind on the island. "What we need is a western hub that can be used as an agro-processing centre so when people produce their crops, they can go and take their produce there. I am not saying Government should do it, but I am saying that that's something we need to look at.

Instead of us taking out 2,000 acres and putting houses, we look at a facility that has already been developed for agriculture. Retooling is what is needed. Montpelier has multiple uses. We are talking about producing. If we are talking about widescale production, where are we going to process the produce?" Hill told Western Focus.

"Montpelier would be ideal. The land is there; water is there; you have the Great River passing down there; you even have the railroad. We have wells down there, road, scales. If you have a local juice programme where you can produce your own concentrates from local indigenous fruits, then that would offset any importation that we have to do of the raw material that is brought into the country for juices.

"And I am saying that we already have 2,000 acres to start with at Montpelier, and then, within the immediate surroundings, we have all the mangoes and all the local indigenous fruits that go to waste every year," Hill stated. The Montpelier Citrus Company is owned by the Development Bank of Jamaica (DBJ), which acquired the property from the National Commercial Bank in 1999.

According to the DBJ, it comprises three farms totalling more than 2,000 acres and a "28-acre commercial facility comprising factory and warehouse spacing". Recently, the DBJ announced that via a public-tender process, "a preferred bidder has been identified for approximately 375 acres being sold for residential development" at Montpelier; that "the proposed modality is the sale or lease of the remaining land to the private sector for agricultural/residential purposes; and that "the DBJ is in discussion for additional acreage for residential purposes".

Vastly untapped potential

But Hill expressed disappointment that the economic potential of agro-processing in Jamaica was largely being overlooked and so remained vastly untapped. "You have no coordinated facility for it (agro-processing). There is no leadership there; there is no coordination there. Agro-processing is lacking, and because of that, you find that people don't produce because when they produce, it goes to waste.

"Even a man who goes out and plants tomatoes, he can only sell so much. If you go and look in the fields, a whole lot of it goes to waste. All of that could go to juices," he said, adding that a large percentage of the $5 billion spent by the Government on the country's school-feeding programme went towards the importation of raw materials, particularly juice concentrates.

"If we resuscitate these (Montpelier) holdings, we could cut down on importation of juice concentrates and supply the school-feeding programme and other juice-packaging companies in the island because all concentrates are imported into the country," he stressed.

"It is not only juices that we can get. we can get purées which can be used in our pies and fillings, and jams and jellies, which is all part of our school-feeding diet. If Montpelier goes under, orange juice prices could rise because what we will end up having is a monopoly."

In January this year, Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Roger Clarke, in an article published in The Gleaner, said schools would have to wait another year for the rollout of the school-feeding programme as there were several challenges being faced, including procurement problems. The programme, which was to have got under way in 2010, was supposed to cater to more than 130,000 students across the island, but at the time, Clarke said "imports are much cheaper and the budget is very finite. So we will have to do a mixture of what we import and our local produce or else the budget would be completely wiped out".