Shal­iza Has­sanali

Af­ter clos­ing its doors for 21 years, Marp­er Farms in Man­zanil­la is set to re­open to­mor­row, and 50,000 cit­rus plants will be avail­able to farm­ers.In 1993 the farm's prop­a­gat­ing sta­tion, which pro­duced the best va­ri­ety of cit­rus and fruit plants on 100 acres of land was closed down by the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment Gov­ern­ment due to its un­prof­itabil­i­ty.

On­ly a co­coa germ plasm unit at the sta­tion was kept op­er­a­tional in or­der to con­tin­ue the work of the Co­coa Re­search Unit at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine cam­pus.

How­ev­er, in 2012 farm­ers in and out of the com­mu­ni­ty ap­pealed to Food Pro­duc­tion Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj to re­open the prop­a­gat­ing sta­tion since there was a short­fall of nurs­ery plants. The farm­ers claimed that sourc­ing young plants at the St Au­gus­tine Nurs­eries, La Re­union Prop­a­ga­tion Sta­tion in Cen­teno, and at Farm Road in St Joseph, was leav­ing them frus­trat­ed.

The farm­ers al­so sug­gest­ed that the sta­tion be used as a train­ing cen­tre for bud­ding agri­cul­tur­al­ists and farm­ers, to gen­er­ate jobs, pro­duce a va­ri­ety of seedlings, and to be con­vert­ed in­to an eco-park for tourists.

Ma­haraj in­vests$3.5 mil­lion in farm

Ma­haraj even­tu­al­ly took the farm­ers' ad­vice and in­ject­ed $3.5 mil­lion to re-es­tab­lish the sta­tion to cater for the needs of the farm­ers who have been cry­ing out for help. They praised the ef­forts of the Food Pro­duc­tion Min­is­ter.In the last 18 months, se­nior agri­cul­tur­al fore­man Hay­man Ramd­hanie said there was a ma­jor trans­for­ma­tion of the old sta­tion."We did a lot of up­grade work, and 50,000 cit­rus plants were prop­a­gat­ed and tend­ed to by OJT trainees to get the project off the ground," Ramd­hanie said.

"We have re­al­ly come a long way in turn­ing this place around."Next year, Ramd­hanie said, they will pro­duce 150,000 cit­rus and fruit plants which will be of­fered to both farm­ers and the pub­lic."While we will try to en­sure that every farmer is sup­plied plants, pri­or­i­ty will be giv­en to those who have placed or­ders at the gov­ern­ment farms since 2008. We are in the process of con­tact­ing these farm­ers to in­form them when to come in and make their pur­chas­es."

Sourc­ing laboura big prob­lem

For the plants to grow in a con­ducive en­vi­ron­ment, Ramd­hanie said, two large glass hous­es and five plant sheds were con­struct­ed last year.A wa­ter pump, wa­ter tanks, agri­cul­tur­al equip­ment and ma­chin­ery were al­so pur­chased. Al­so, an ac­cess road lead­ing to the farm was paved, while se­cu­ri­ty cam­eras were in­stalled, a fence erect­ed, and armed guards were hired.

He said the sta­tion's biggest prob­lem, how­ev­er, was sourc­ing labour."Like every farm in the coun­try, at­tract­ing work­ers has been dif­fi­cult as few peo­ple want to get in­volved in agri­cul­ture. As it stands, we need at least 50 work­ers to reach our pro­ject­ed tar­get next year. We are keep­ing our fin­gers crossed that things work out," he said.