March 27th, 2014

A small Grenadian garden producing staple food crops.

 

Almost a decade ago, Hurricane Ivan ripped through Grenada devastating the majority of homes, infrastructure, and agricultural crops. The island has struggled to rebuild, including reestablishing the growth of its chief export, nutmeg. I often grate fresh nutmeg into my cooking, but had never seen it growing. These beautiful trees are covered with what looks like green peaches weeks before ripening. Inside is a shell, covered in a blood red webbing that is also a spice known as mace, and inside the shell is the pit that we know as nutmeg. These trees take seven to nine years to establish before a harvest is seen, making for a slow recovery of this part of the economy after the storm.

 

Commodity crops such as nutmeg and cocoa aside, much of Grenada's agricultural land is dedicated to growing fruit and vegetables for consumption on the island. Foods like breadfruit and yam that contribute to a traditional diet are grown with hand tools and the strong backs of an aging group of farmers. These small operations are predominantly the work of individual farmers, using their own privately-held land. The next generation sees the lack of infrastructure, appropriate technology, and income to be earned from farming and are increasing shying away from the vocation. This is a subsistence lifestyle that they want no part of; they are hungry for a different life. They choose instead to move to the tourist meccas on the west coast of the island, hoping to obtain jobs in the tourism industry. But, because most lack training and few jobs are available, there is a high rate of unemployment and poverty among the young. Their poverty echoes that of their rural predecessors, except now they are also without their own source of food.

 

Warren, our hiking guide in Grand Etang National Park, told us, "The youth want a fast life and fast food." He pointed out a garden and made certain that we knew that gardening is just "for the elderly." Fortunately "fast food" doesn't necessarily always mean greasy buckets of grub from the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants that seem to be in abundance on this tiny island. Warren is also referring to the vendors who sell lentil soup, roti (a flatbread popular in South America), and the national dish of oil-down (a stew of salted meat and vegetables cooked in coconut milk) out of the backs of vans and roadside shacks. Warren is in shape and extremely active, like most of the residents of the island. He says that he is aware of the health problems that other countries like the United States have in part because of a growing reliance on fast food.

 

Ten years later, Grenada is still recovering from Hurricane Ivan. The storm altered the way of life here quickly and drastically, but the evolution of the food system here is happening more slowly. I believe that it may be just as devastating to the economy and culture. Traditional, whole foods are being replaced by those buckets of KFC and highly processed, imported convenience foods. As interest in farming continues to wane, few people will even have the knowledge or the land to grow those staple foods. However, there is hope as people seem to grow aware of this issue and start to discuss ways to keep Grenada growing its own food and preserve the agrarian cultural roots that have fed its people for generations.

 

We're currently in the process of expanding our Fresh Little Farm Girl line of bodycare and household products and this week we're excited to announce the addition of a new product to the lineup.  Fresh Little Farm Girl Laundry Detergent has a clean, fresh scent, and is gentle enough to launder delicates while still possessing the power to remove stubborn stains.  Best of all, it features the same all-natural ingredients we're proud to include in all of our Fresh Little Farm Girl products.  It's currently available at the farm store in two pound bags (enough for about seventy washes) and will soon be available at our online store at hunterfarmsorganic.com/store.html. Try some out and let us know what you think!

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or UAVs, more commonly referred to as drones, are increasingly moving from the battlefield into our daily lives. While the potential use of drones by UPS and Amazon to deliver packages and privacy concerns regarding drone use by government and law enforcement agencies have been much in the news as of late, some industry analysts predict that the bulk of domestic drones will eventually be employed in agriculture.  Whether they are used to monitor crop productivity, health, or damage or to locate stray livestock, drones are being touted as an indispensable innovation for the agriculture industry. While the scale of operations at Hunter Farms allows us to walk the fields to take stock of our crops, we can see potential value for the technology.  Perhaps in the future, instead of cumbersome netting, a periodic flyover by a drone equipped with recordings of hawks and other birds of prey will deter various small bird species from consuming our precious blueberries.  Whatever the future may hold for us here at the farm, we found this article from USA Today (linked below) of interest and hope you do as well. 

   

Hunter Farms | | hunterfarms@yahoo.com |
7269 Sterrettania Rd, P.O. Box 478
Fairview, PA 16415