Champion ginger farmer takes a big hit

Nicholas Anderson, who was crowned Champion Ginger Farmer for three successive years at the Denbigh Agricultural Show in Clarendon, is taking a battering from a combination of plant disease and heavy rains.

Anderson, who reigned from 2016 to 2018 as the king of ginger farming, said he has lost more than $25 million as a result of his crop being destroyed by the bacterial wilt disease.

The Jamaican ginger, known to be of premium quality on the world market, has been affected by rhizome rot and bacterial wilt diseases. The bacterial wilt is a very destructive disease, which is known to occur in the wet tropics, subtropics and some temperate regions of the world.

"The disease doesn't come from the rain, but the rain makes it more active in the planting season. With the rain, it spreads very, very fast and the more rain, the more the spread," Anderson explained.

Anderson, whose farm is located in Sandy River in Kellits, said he took a battering from the disease last year, when he planted 25,000 pounds of ginger. This year he has planted 15,000 pounds of ginger, and he continues to suffer major loss. But it has not been all bad for Anderson, who was Young Farmer of the Year in 2016. He said he managed to salvage some of his ginger to meet demand for the upcoming Christmas season.

"I will have a few patches to satisfy the local market in Christmas, but after that, whatever is left, we have to sell it because I can't use back this field for planting ginger," he said. He told THE WEEKEND STAR that the field is too 'contaminated' and so he will be planting yams in those plots and will use other lands for the planting of his ginger.

Farming for over 15 years, Anderson started out rearing pigs but soon turned his attention to a small plot of ginger, and from there his enterprise grew. Despite the setback, Anderson plans to continue to plough his way to success.