Farmers call for cassava support

Nigel Levy, president of the St Thomas Cassava Growers Association Limited, is rallying stakeholders to invest in the booming subsector, which he believes has the potential to be a powerhouse for Jamaica and the Caribbean.

Speaking at the inaugural St Thomas Cassava Festival on February 28 at the Golden Grove Sports Complex, Levy highlighted the strides farmers have made in increasing production, but stressed that they can't do it alone.

"We have over 200 acres of cassava growing in this Bath division, which should yield 1,500 tons. In monetary value, [this will] turn over $100 million in our surrounding," Levy said.

"We are now asking for stakeholders, agencies, politicians, farmers and everyone to support the cassava industry [in St Thomas], so that we can become one of the main producers of cassava not only in Jamaica, but in the Caribbean. We know, without any doubt, that we have the potential because right now, even though we are earning this, we are below 50 per cent of our capacity," Levy said.

But while the potential is massive, cassava production in Jamaica has taken a nosedive in recent years. Data from the 2023 Economic and Social Survey of Jamaica paints a concerning picture -- sweet cassava production fell from 26,960 tonnes in 2020 to just 15,351 tonnes in 2023, while bitter cassava also declined, dropping from 5,031 tonnes to 4,318 tonnes over the same period.

Levy said the vision of the St Thomas Cassava Growers Association Limited is to see cassava in St Thomas grow to become what the sugar industry was for the parish some years ago.

Meanwhile, Orville Palmer, chief technical director in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining, said cassava has great agro-processing and export potential. He also said that with the World Bank indicating that the global market for cassava is growing, "we need to make more use of our cassava".

"Jamaica is more than capable to capture a significant amount of the cassava global market. We need to ramp up cassava production, [and] we also need to produce more efficiently, so that we can get more out of each acre of land that is under cassava production," Palmer said.