Senior growing her food in tiny Portmore space

The old adage 'grow what you eat, eat what you grow' rings true for 74-year-old Millicent Atkins, whose backyard garden has been the main source of meals for her family.

"I plant calaloo, pak choi, lettuce and corn and such," said Atkins when THE STAR visited her at her home in Portmore, St Catherine on Friday.

"If you also notice, mi have mi likkle pepper, pine, ginger and so. Is over 40 years we planting things here enuh. My husband (Earnest) and I came here from Kingston and, when he got the house, he started planting flowers," she added.

She has since moved away from planting flowers in her tiny yard space and is now producing food which leaves her farm and goes straight to her table.

Atkins said that, by planting what she eats, she is able to continue to live a full and energetic life.

"I don't know what they put on the things that they are selling to us. So, therefore, anything that l can do for myself, I do it," added the senior citizen who also plants yam and raises chicken for consumption.

"People must learn to make their own bread. When yuh plant your things and grow it, you don't have to use fertiliser on it enuh," she said. "I don't want any chemicals in my body. Why yuh think I raise my own chicken? I cannot tell when last l have been to a doctor."

Atkins, a retired factory worker, said that having a say over her own food supply relieves her of the financial burden on consumers who have to deal with heightened food prices.

"The rising food price is not going to bother me that much, because I can either go to my backyard or to the front and find food there to eat ... . When holiday time come, like Christmas, and yuh know it is time for gungo, I don't go and buy gungo," she said.

"I am 74 and l don't have to call nobody to do nothing here. I do everything myself. Jamaicans love what is called 'ready done' too much. They don't feel like they should go out there and perspire to do anything. So they have a mentality that, when them don't have anything, the Government must give them. But I will forever keep saying that, as it relates to food, you have to be able to provide for yourselves."

"Right now, Jamaican people no supposed to a cry 'bout food, but it is because we are lazy.

The Government last year rolled out a backyard gardening project aimed at bolstering food security while at the same time enhancing householders' nutrition, health and well-being. Atkins, who was born in Clarendon, said that not only is backyard gardening important but the Government should also find ways to get more Jamaicans involved in farming.

"Give land to the young people dem weh not doing anything and mek dem plant," she said, while adding that a food shortage crisis is on the horizon.