Farmer wants market for hot commodity

Beris Reid has been planting hot peppers for about 30 years. The yields have been good, price has been steady, and he does not have an issue with irrigation.

The condiment which is required in the local fresh market as well as overseas markets, sells for between $600 and $1,000 per pound. Reid enjoys doing everything - from tilling the soil at his farm in Seafield district, Guy's Hill, St Catherine - to planting and reaping the hot commodity. His troubles, however, are in the area of marketing.

"I don't know anything else but farming, but mi affi work even harder fi get market. It rough, man," said Reid as he tended to several hundred Scotch bonnet plants on his farm.

"Mi inside di field yah from as early as 5 o'clock a mawnin time. Mi weed, mi wata, mi plant and when it come in, is a next work fi get it sell," the father of three said.

Reid said that he often journeys to Linstead in the parish, or even further to the Coronation Market in Kingston, to get his peppers sold. He wished this was not so.

"If we could get the Guy's Hill Market up and running to its potential, mi boss, den more work and more money as it would cost less to get di crops out," he said.

Farmers have, for years, clamoured for access to markets, which they say could boost their competitiveness. In the case of Reid, 54, all he wants to do is produce the three-month cash crop and not have to worry about finding market for it.

"Is just di market ting mi want to fix as di pepper a hot business, just easier market mi need,'' Reid said.