WHAT IS a FARM? AGRICULTURE, DISCOURSE, and PRODUCING LANDSCAPES in ST ELIZABETH, JAMAICA by Gary R. Schnakenberg a DISSERTATION

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WHAT IS A FARM? AGRICULTURE, DISCOURSE, AND PRODUCING LANDSCAPES IN ST ELIZABETH, JAMAICA

Gary R. Schnakenberg

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Geography – Doctor of Philosophy

2013

ABSTRACT

WHAT IS A FARM? AGRICULTURE, DISCOURSE, AND PRODUCING LANDSCAPES IN ST. ELIZABETH, JAMAICA

Gary R. Schnakenberg

This dissertation research examined the operation of discourses associated with contemporary globalization in producing the agricultural landscape of an area of rural Jamaica.

Subject to European colonial domination from the time of Columbus until the 1960s and then as a small island state in an unevenly globalizing world, Jamaica has long been subject to operations of unequal power relationships. Its history as a sugar colony based upon chattel slavery shaped aspects of the society that emerged, and left imprints on the ethnic makeup of the population, orientation of its economy, and beliefs, values, and attitudes of Jamaican people.

Many of these are smallholder agriculturalists, a livelihood strategy common in former colonial places. Often ideas, notions, and practices about how farms and farming ‘ought-to-be’ in such places results from the operations and workings of discourse.

As advanced by Foucault, ‘discourse’ refers to meanings and knowledge circulated among people and results in practices that in turn produce and re-produce those meanings and knowledge. Discourses define what is right, correct, can be known, and produce ‘the world as it is.’ They also have material effects, in that what it means ‘to farm’ results in a landscape that emerges from those meanings. In Jamaica, meanings of ‘farms’ and ‘farming’ have been shaped by discursive elements of contemporary globalization such as modernity, competition, and individualism. These have produced the agricultural landscape in St Elizabeth parish, an area known for the production of vegetables.

This research employed a political ecology approach, in that it sought to identify and analyze how workings of power at different scales influenced decisions made by farmers in how they interacted with their environment. As the operation and circulation of discourses as well as their articulation by farmers themselves was the topic, this political ecology utilized discourse analysis. Using mixed methods, my research included qualitative interviews, document/archival research, collecting data on both current and historical Jamaican agricultural production, and origins of produce for sale in grocery stores. It revealed that smallholder farmers are often characterized as ‘backward’ in development and government circles, despite evidence to the contrary. Also, ideas of modernity associated with technology influence farmer decision-making in agricultural practices, even as the financial burdens that result are identified as challenges.

Both findings relate to Jamaica’s history as a former ‘plantation society’ long under colonial domination. The practices promoted by modernist discourses further marginalize and disadvantage many smallholder farmers, not only economically, but also through environmental and health impacts resulting from widespread use of agrochemicals. At the same time, alternative paths and ‘sites of resistance’ to these dominant discourses exist in Jamaica that present more sustainable possibilities for smallholders.

Although south St Elizabeth is the site of the case study featured in this research, the findings have implications for the wider post-colonial world. Farmers in such places suffer from a dualism: export commodities produced on large holdings receive attention and support at the expense of small producers of local staples. Development agencies and other experts often apply agricultural techniques not suited to local ecosystems or socioeconomic conditions and otherwise try to ‘fix’ places discursively placed as underdeveloped. This research serves to provide both a critique and potential alternatives more sensitive to local conditions and circumstances.

This dissertation is dedicated to a particular three people whom I am proud to include among the many teachers I have been fortunate to have in my life. Their guidance and inspiration enabled me to undertake this work and bring the part represented by this dissertation to fruition. To Rebecca, who guided me to this path, and helped keep my feet on it through the example of her own dedication to her work and her unwavering belief in me; and also to mi bredren Frankie and Doul, who always made me welcome in their hearts as well as their yards.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I cannot think of a circumstance in which someone who enters graduate study and completes the writing of a dissertation does not owe a great deal to many who have helped along the way. As my path to this project is not the typical one, coming as it has well into my fifties and after another career, I feel I am especially indebted. The Department of Geography at

Michigan State University took a chance on admitting me to a Ph.D. program, applying as I did without having come right out of a Master’s program and at my stage of life. The department also provided me with significant financial support through Graduate Assistantships and annual

Fellowships to do the fieldwork necessary in Jamaica, in addition to a Lawrence and Marjorie

Sommers Geography Graduate Fellowship for International Research and Travel in 2012. A department is made up of people, and even apart from my committee, the levels of support and encouragement I received from everyone with whom I had contact was remarkable; I need to express my appreciation in particular to Alan Arbogast, Dick Groop, Randy Schaetzel, Ashton

Shortridge, Judy Reginek, Claudia Brown, and Sharon Ruggles. I have also been blessed to be associated with a wonderful group of grad school colleagues in my time at MSU, whose varied interests and keen intelligence provided such stimulation and camaraderie, despite our different life stages.

I received financial support in 2012 from the Michigan State College of Social Sciences, as well as the Graduate School in the form of a Research Enhancement Award; for these I am extremely grateful as they allowed me to stay in Jamaica long enough to complete the data collection necessary to begin the writing of this dissertation. Thanks for financial support also to the Latin America Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers for a research

vi grant awarded in 2011. The work of LASG members and the Conference of Latin Americanist

Geographers continue to inspire interest and new research in this diverse and fascinating part of the world.

There are many people whom I cannot adequately thank. My dissertation committee chair and program advisor, Antoinette WinklerPrins, is foremost among these. I could not have found a better advisor and mentor. The examples of her scholarship, approach to geographic research, guidance and mentoring, encouragement and support, constructive criticism, and sense of humor present me with an obligation to ‘pay forward’ that will be a challenge tofulfill. I even forgive her for being younger than me. Other members of my committee also leave me with debts of gratitude. Kyle Evered was my initial advisor, and remains someone from whom I continue to learn a great deal. His extensive knowledge of an incredibly wide range of geographic and historical literature provided me with many sources and writers upon which I was later able to lean in this project. Laurie Medina pushed my thinking in the ‘Culture, Resources, and Power’ class I took with her; she also provided guidance and encouragement early on when I went to talk with her as Acting Director of MSU’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

Sarah Nicholls’ expertise in issues relating to tourism, so essential in any discussion of Jamaica, contributed greatly to my successful completion of this dissertation, as did her encouragement along the way.

Harm deBlij not only made me familiar with aspects of human geography as an author and tireless promoter of the discipline for many years, but also responded immediately to my request for advice on the possibly crazy idea of entering a Ph.D. program at that particular juncture of my life. First through email, then meeting in person over a glass of wine at the

National Council for Geographic Education Annual Meeting in Oklahoma City, he suggested

vii that not only might this be a good idea, but Michigan State’s Nature and Society program area could be a good fit given my interests. The rest, as he would say, is geography. I have appreciated his checking up on my progress each time he comes to East Lansing.

Paul Robbins’ work both in political ecology and about political ecology has been an intellectual inspiration. I have sought to learn from his clarity of expression when writing about complicated and sometimes troubling things. He also has been a model of a good mentor on an interpersonal level, whether responding to contacts from my high school students about his work, encouraging the work of new geographers when he meets them, or providing suggestions or directions for information and resources to those who reach out to him to ask.

Klaus Bayr and Al Rydant at Keene State College first turned my head towards geography as a field and made me say, “THAT’S what I want to learn about!” They, along with

Chris Cusack and Ted Miller, became valued friends and colleagues.

I am forever in the debt of the many outstanding people at Souhegan High School with whom I was privileged to work. Ken Boisselle, Melissa Chapman, Colleen Meaney, Richard

‘Wally’ Wallace, Peggy Silva, among many others, are worth singling out for special recognition, but any attempt to list people invariably leaves off those deserving mention. I thank deeply all of my former colleagues and continued friends there. The commitment of this institution and the people within it to authentic and lifelong learning serves as a model, not only for me on my own path but for American public education in general. I also thank the several thousand students, both at Souhegan and previously at Milford High School, who I had in my public school teaching career. They provided the enjoyment that kept me getting up at 5:00 a.m. and going to work happy.

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I extend my thanks to Chair of the Geography and Geology at the University of the West

Indies at Mona David Barker, not only for his work on agriculture and local knowledge that was so important to me, but also for his initial support for this research and letter of introduction that was so helpful in my time at UWI. I also extend my appreciation to Gavin Waters and Honica

Brown at the Jamaican Language Unit at UWI, as well the librarians in the Social Sciences

Library at the Arthur Lewis Institute, and the Main Library’s West Indies and World Bank

Collections. Welcome help was also given at the National Library of Jamaica in downtown

Kingston and the National Archives in Spanish Town. Ms. Gloria Morgan provided invaluable assistance at the Ministry of Agriculture Library on Hope Road.

Words cannot effectively express my appreciation to the many people I have come to know and who have provided so many different manners of help to me in Jamaica. Frankie and

Doul, mentioned in the dedication, are men of wisdom, vision, and dignity, and I have been privileged to be accepted and included as a ‘bredren.’ Doul shared his knowledge and experience about farming, along with lots of produce. Frankie served as an intermediary and guide who made many crucial introductions and whose accompanying me often legitimized my presence. I thank them both for their invaluable assistance, and for their friendship.

Jeanne Genus, a truly remarkable woman, has taken me on almost as a member of her extended family. I appreciate the many introductions made on my behalf and the many conversations shared about social issues with this long-time teacher and activist for justice, and look forward to their continuing for many years. Keisha, Shaka, Naneka, Aziza, Kingcheck, and

Vickers have all shared their generous spirits and provided me – and my wife Rebecca when she has been there – with great company and the kind of insights that only come through real relationships. The ‘greater Genus family’ lands in Great Bay are filled with kind, funny,

ix hospitable people who always made me feel welcome. Liz Solms first connected me with this community, and her insights have been extremely valuable. Jason Henzell deserves recognition for guidance offered and connections made in the area, as well as for his tireless work to promote the community of Treasure Beach. He also runs a great place; pizza, shrimp creole, or escoveitched fish and a cold Red Stripe at Jack Sprat bar next to Jake’s Resort have sated me more than once and are not to be missed in Treasure Beach. More broadly, the generosity, humor, and overall good will of the people of southern St Elizabeth Parish have contributed beyond measure to whatever success may result from this project.

My wife Rebecca has been a staunch supporter of me and my ability to do this project, even when I doubted it. Her fierceness of commitment to her work, unwavering belief in standing for what is right and good for communities and the people and the more-than-human members who comprise them are a daily inspiration. I cannot thank her enough for the guidance, suggestions, editing, and championing she provided; I can honestly say this would not have been started, let alone completed, without her. I am grateful for the support of the rest of my family, especially my daughter Beckie. She, along with Lara and Colin, make me proud of how they are making their ways in the world. My mother is a model of quiet and unassuming courage in the face of challenge, and does not really know the inspiration she provides. Our friends and neighbors in New Hampshire have provided emotional support as well as a welcome meal or drink now and again, and continue to remind me what it truly means to be part of a community.

Lastly, my longtime friend Wyatt Shakespeare helped me think about Jamaica as something other than the tourist-brochure image decades ago; the genesis of this project therefore may be attributable to him.

All of these many people, along with those I cannot remember or are too numerous to mention, have contributed to this project. In the end, however, any and all shortcomings of this writing and the research from which it comes are mine alone.

PREFACE

It is heading towards late afternoon on a mid-May day in 2009, and I am lost. I am in the hills in the general vicinity of Treasure Beach, but have missed a right turn that I should have taken some time back, and the subsequent attempts to backtrack and find it and compensate by taking another right have come to dead ends, sometimes literally.

Though I have been to Jamaica several times before, my only experiences in an automobile have been as a passenger. The rental car I have for the next three and a half weeks is a small sturdy 'Jeep'-like vehicle, and I had negotiated the drive across the island from Sangster

International Airport in Montego Bay with only small challenges, winding my way through villages on a potholed and rutted two lane that is one of the main highways in the country. I loved what I was seeing. I passed through two intense downpours on the drive, and in a small town after one of them rolled down the window and was greeted by the aroma of ganja wafting in on the thick humid air beginning to steam in the emerging sun, but saw no one. The main street of Black River is one-way and I had to make two circles of the downtown before I took the correct turn to head east towards the Treasure Beach area that was to be my home base for this initial field experience, and subsequent ones as well, although I did not know this at the time. At this particular moment, I wasn't sure I was going to reach my destination; I was hungry and a little dehydrated, not having eaten since six in the morning in the Detroit airport and not having any water since leaving Montego Bay. A headache was beginning.

As the rays of the sun coming from behind and to my right lengthen, I begin to see people walking along the small roads I have been crisscrossing. Singly, in pairs and trios, and in knots of four and five, the roads seem suddenly filled with people in the process of going to and

xii coming from. I am struck by the beauty of the interplay of the golden sun, the deep green of the

Santa Cruz escarpment to my left, the dark skin of the people, and the colors, both vibrant and muted, of the clothing they wore. I ask a man on the road how to get to Treasure Beach, and I receive easy directions. I am not far off at all; two turns and a couple of miles down the hills and

I'd be there.

And, as it turns out, this state of affairs is an apt metaphor for much of the rest of the ensuing project, and perhaps for the process of much qualitative research as well: I wasn't quite sure where I was, but turned out to be closer than I thought.

I came to this project fairly late compared to most of my fellow graduate students at

Michigan State University; I had been a high school teacher for over twenty-five years before I applied to the grad program in the Geography department in 2008. I loved teaching and my students, but after the untimely death of my wife, my daughter’s graduating college, and my subsequent remarriage to a onetime best friend from long ago, I was ready for doing something else. I had begun wondering about what was ‘behind’ the ideas and content I had been teaching about in high school World Studies and A.P. Human Geography classes and introductory classes at nearby Keene State College, and after receiving encouragement from my wife, my colleagues, and geographers Susan Hanson and Harm deBlij, I applied to MSU and arrived there in the fall of 2008.

My interests were in the ‘Nature-society’ program, and I knew I wanted to focus my research on something having to do with globalization. In much of my experience as a high school social studies teacher, it had seemed to me that these collective processes were being framed in much sunnier ways than many of their effects and impacts warranted. I had thought of

xiii studying Ladakh in far northwestern India, or possibly South Africa, both places to which I had traveled where I was fascinated by what I saw going on – not always in a positive way. However, a phone conversation with the Graduate Advisor, Antoinette WinklerPrins, I was urged to think of somewhere else where I could examine some of the same issues. These places were both far away and expensive to reach, and required sometimes lengthy waits for research permissions, and though I was hardly in my dotage, I did not want to take any longer to complete this program than necessary. I began thinking about Jamaica.

I was thinking about Jamaica, too, as I came down the hill to the Treasure Beach area.

How would people deal with me? After all, I was convinced that I was a good guy and all, but there was no way I was going to ‘blend in’ and operate ‘under the radar’ here; I was going to stand out as much as is possible for one to do. In some ways, this fact was helpful in that it was impossible therefore to misrepresent myself. As an outsider – unless I was going to be egregiously duplicitous – I had to explain myself and what I was doing in order to ask questions and engage in conversations relevant to my research. As a result, my own positionality was apparent from the outset. I am a white male, and therefore although I have in my studies sought to understand subalternality and feminist theory and approaches to research, my life has been experienced from the position of a member of the dominant group. I had access to a solid ‘Great

Society’-era public education, went to college, established a well-paying career, and entered graduate study. Even my experiences with other people in other places that helped prepare me for these studies and this field research reflected my privilege: I could afford to travel for the purposes of my own pleasure. I was here to conduct research that would benefit me, that would bring me status and eventually some economic benefit. No matter how much I maintained an

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‘open mind,’ nothing was going to change these facts about who I was and what I was doing among these mostly poor, mostly black people. All I could do was be honest, forthright, and conscious of this positionality.

As I bounced down the dusty track towards the cottages where I would be staying, I both fought back the increasing headache and wondered how on earth I would have found this place had I not gotten specific directions. I had driven past the small dirt road off which this track branched and reached a dead end near the beach at Great Bay, where I stopped at the public pavilion and called Frankie again for detailed ‘close-in’ guidance. I pulled into the yard, and

Frankie strode down from his house to greet me: a tall, lanky reddish-brown man with thinning dreadlocks shot with grey and a large welcoming smile. A few minutes in his presence set me at ease. Over the first few days as we talked, it became clear to me that his insights and knowledge made him a valuable person to know. I had no idea at the time the degree to which this would be the case; over my research ‘seasons’ he has become an absolutely invaluable assistant because of his knowledge of farming, his intellect, his humor, and the fact that he appears at times to be related to or know someone who is related to every person in St Elizabeth. He has also become one of my greatest friends.

Aside from the bureaucratic, ‘red-tape’ type of problems I discuss in the body of the dissertation, I experienced others. I did not know how to approach people who were both strangers and busy making a living and ask them to take time to talk with me. In addition, simply finding people with whom to talk became a challenge at times. Many farmers work on their own schedules and in the rhythms of the day in their own ways; many work early in the morning to avoid the heat of the day, but while heading up to the fields near first light sometimes brought

xv me in contact with farmers, at other times I wouldn’t see anyone. Conversely, I might be driving on an errand on a Sunday afternoon with someone in the car, and see people working in a field a way off the road. So I would try going through areas in different times of day, but my ability to access folks for interviews remained hit-or-miss.

One difficulty I did not encounter was a sense of resentment. An amusing – and telling – element of my ethnographic method to essentially go into areas with lots of farms and wander around is that I was frequently in places where white Americans are not seen. Invariably people walking or driving past me as we negotiated the treacherous road conditions assumed I was lost and offered to help me find my ‘way back.’ They sometimes seemed surprised and maybe a little pleased that I was up there in the hills because that’s where I wanted to be, or was going to talk with one of their neighbors. Aside from a couple of cases in which I was impinging on peoples’ time or someone was a little reticent to share a few specifics, the people with whom I talked were extremely generous with their time. I never really felt unwelcome in a conversation with someone. I often was left with the impression that many people with whom I was talking were actually happy that someone, let alone a white American, was concerned about what was going on in their lives and the issues they faced as farmers without starting from the position that they were doing something wrong. I often left an interview with some produce the farmer had grown that s/he insisted I take with me.

In another sense, I frequently did feel ‘lost.’ Many times over the course of the research I would complain to my wife that I had no idea what I was doing. I was talking with people

(sometimes, anyway) and they were often telling me useful and important things, but what do I do with them? Each summer I returned, it seemed I had the same questions about what I was finding and how to make sense of it, even though I had been able to articulate some level of

xvi synthesis over the time since I had last been there. I came to understand that another important aspect of doing research of this type was what accompanied what Anne Ferguson referred to as

‘intense hanging out’ in the place and among the people where one is conducting the research.

Not only did it serve to make me more of a known quantity among people in south St Elizabeth and help my research by indicating I was not doing a ‘drive-by’ collection of answers, but as time passed it also provided a depth of understanding of conditions, circumstances, and people that enabled me to undertake the task of writing this dissertation project.

I hope that I have been true to my goals and ideals at the outset of this project. I hope that

I have accurately and fairly represented the people whose voices I have tried to bring out here; I have no doubt that I will hear whether I have when I share the results of this research with them.

For now, I do not know for certain where I am in this regard, but as has been the case several times over the course of this work, I may be closer than I think.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ...... xix

LIST OF FIGURES ...... xx

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW ...... 1 1.1 Introduction...... 1 1.2 Conceptual Approach...... 4 1.3 Political Ecology ...... 7 1.4 Discourse Analysis ...... 9 1.5 Methods ...... 12 1.6 The State of Modernity ...... 19 1.7 Outline of Dissertation ...... 32

CHAPTER 2 THE CONTEXT: JAMAICA, THE CARIBBEAN, AND STUDY AREA .. 34 Part I: Jamaica and the Caribbean 2.1 Physical Characteristics ...... 34 2.2 Historical Setting and Cultural Characteristics ...... 45 2.2.1 Indigenous peoples ...... 45 2.2.2 Colonization and Creolization ...... 51 2.2.3 Contemporary Jamaica ...... 68 2.2.4 Conclusion to Part I ...... 71 Part II: The Study Area ...... 73 2.3 The Study Area ...... 73 2.3.1 Overview ...... 73 2.3.2 Study Area Physical Characteristics ...... 75 2.3.3 Historical/cultural Characteristics ...... 80 2.3.4 People ...... 84 2.3.5 Tourism ...... 88 2.3.6 Conclusion to Part II ...... 88

CHAPTER 3 AGRICULTURE IN JAMAICA AND SOUTH ST ELIZABETH ...... 90 3.1. History, Crops, and Commodities ...... 90 3.2. Legacies of the Plantations, Agriculture, and Modernity ...... 96 3.3. Contemporary Agricultural Patterns in Jamaica ...... 104 3.4. Conclusion ...... 114

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CHAPTER 4 THE VIEW FROM THE GROUND: WHAT FARMERS SAY ABOUT AGRICULTURE...... 115 4.1. Introduction ...... 115 4.2. Common Themes Emerging From Farmer Interviews ...... 118 Theme 1. Mistrust of the government or other power structures ...... 118 Theme 2. Problems with marketing...... 125 Theme 3. Overproduction of the same commodities resulting in low prices ...... 137 Theme 4. High costs of chemical inputs ...... 144 4.3. Conclusion ...... 145

CHAPTER 5 DOMINANT DISCOURSES IN ACTION ...... 148 5.1 Introduction ...... 148 5.2. Farmers as ‘Backward’ and ‘Resistant’ ...... 150 5.3. Agrochemical Use ...... 163 5.4. Efficiency and Competitiveness ...... 180 5.5. Material Effects: The Landscape as Discursively Produced...... 186 5.6. Conclusion ...... 199

CHAPTER 6 ALTERNATIVE PATHS AND SITES OF RESISTANCE ...... 201 6.1. Introduction ...... 201 6.2. ‘Outside’ the Agro-system ...... 202 6.3. ‘Inside’ the Agro-system ...... 213 6.4. Tourism ...... 227 6.5. Conclusion ...... 238

CHAPTER 7 CONCLUSIONS ...... 241 7.1. Summary ...... 241 7.2. Implications and Outcomes ...... 244 7.3. Limitations of This Study and Suggestions for Further Research ..... 253 7.4. Final Words ...... 256

APPENDICES ...... 258 Appendix A. Discussion of Methods for Qualitative Interviews ...... 259 Appendix B. List of Interviewees, 2009-2012 ...... 265 Appendix C. Results of visual produce inventories of selected Jamaican supermarkets, 2009-2012...... 268

REFERENCES ...... 277

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1. Mean Monthly Rainfall by Parish in mm, 1951-1980 ...... 42

Table 5.1. Average annual imports by decade of fertilizer component chemicals to Jamaica 1961-2010, in metric tons ...... 172

Table B.1. List of Interviewees, 2009-2012 ...... 265

Table C.1. Results of visual produce inventories of selected Jamaican supermarkets, 2009-2012...... 268

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1. Physical-Political Map of Jamaica ...... 38

Figure 2.2. Jamaica Mean Monthly Rainfall Averages in mm, 1951-1980 ...... 41

Figure 2.3. Jamaica Mean Annual Rainfall Averages in mm, 1951-1980...... 43

Figure 2.4. Jamaica Rainfall Distribution by Parish, 1951-1980 ...... 44

Figure 2.5. Flags on utility poles marking JLP (green) and PNP (orange) 'turf,' Spanish Town and Kingston, respectively...... 70

Figure 2.6. Wall graffiti marking PNP-supporting area, Kingston...... 70

Figure 2.7. St Elizabeth Parish, with study area shaded ...... 74

Figure 2.8. Mean Monthly Rainfall in mm for Selected South St Elizabeth Stations, With Comparisons to Aggregate Means for St Elizabeth and Jamaica ...... 77

Figure 2.9. The Great Pedro Ponds...... 78

Figure 2.10. Sugar irrigation canal, St Catherine Parish ...... 84

Figure 2.11. Blunter's Well ...... 86

Figure 3.1. Composite Production Index of Selected Domestic Food Staples ...... 107

Figure 3.2. Agriculture Production Index, 2003-2010 ...... 111

Figure 4.1. Beet armyworms on scallion plants ...... 123

Figure 4.2. Onions destroyed by beet armyworms near Pedro Cross...... 124

Figure 4.3. Roads damaged by 2002 and 2007 hurricanes, Round Hill area ...... 126

Figure 4.4. Higgler vendors, Great Bay, St Elizabeth ...... 128

Figure 4.5. Waiting for the higglers, Little Park ...... 129

Figure 4.6. GraceKennedy Post-harvest and packaging plant, Hounslow ...... 133

Figure 4.7. GraceKennedy Post-harvest and packaging plant, Hounslow ...... 134

Figure 4.8. Greenhouse technology on display, Denbigh Agricultural Show ...... 146

Figure 5.1. Guinea grass (Panicum maximum) mulching, near Round Hill ...... 153

Figure 5.2. Cut Guinea grass being trucked to fields, Great Bay ...... 154

Figure 5.3. AgroGrace Farm Store, Southfield ...... 165

Figure 5.4. Sign at farm store, Mountainside ...... 165

Figure 5.5. Scanned 'month' page for May 2012 of Hi Pro Farm Supplies company promotional calendar ...... 167

Figure 5.6. Scan of promotional flyer, Ace Supercentre ...... 169

Figure 5.7. Newport-Fersan Fertilizer display, Denbigh Agricultural Show ...... 170

Figure 5.8. Hi-Pro Fertilizer and Feeds display, Denbigh Agricultural Show ...... 170

Figure 5.9. Scan of cover image, Tropical Farmers’ Almanac, 2011 edition ...... 176

Figure 5.10. Schematic illustration of ‘The International Environment’ within which Jamaica will operate ...... 183

Figure 5.11. Melon patch 'burned' by weedkiller in preparation for planting alternative crop ...... 190

Figure 5.12. Page scan from the Tropical Farmers' Almanac describing 'Rules for effective use of pesticides' ...... 194

Figure 5.13. The Image. Pesticide Control Authority display booth, Denbigh Agricultural Show ...... 195

Figure 5.14. The Reality. Agricultural worker spraying, Southfield...... 195

Figure 5.15. Agro-chemical litter in farmer field, 2011 ...... 196

Figure 5.16. Agro-chemical litter in farmer field, 2012 ...... 196

Figure 5.17. Agro-chemical litter in farmer field, 2012 ...... 197

Figure 5.18. Agro-chemical litter in farmer field, 2012 ...... 197

Figure 5.19. Agro-chemical litter in farmer field, 2012 ...... 198

Figure 5.20. Agro-chemical litter in farmer field, 2012 ...... 198

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Figure 6.1. Portion of a Maroon intercropped garden, Accompong Town ...... 212

Figure 6.2. Dallie's organic farm nursery, Round Hill ...... 218

Figure 6.3. A shipment of Dallie's produce on its way to the resort kitchen ...... 218

Figure 6.4. JOAM tent, Denbigh Agricultural Show ...... 223

Figure 6.5. RADA Research and Demonstration Center, Hounslow ...... 225

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW

1.1 Introduction

Driving the narrow roads through the hills above Treasure Beach in St. Elizabeth Parish to the supermarket at Crossroads, the driver may pass fields of tomatoes rotting in the sun, but when you get there, the shelves – like those at other supermarkets around the country – will be stocked with cans of Hunts and Del Monte tomatoes from the US. Continuing on, fields of onions, melons, tomatoes, scallions, carrots, peanuts, cucumbers, and peppers create a patchwork for miles. An open shed in a farmer's yard may have dozens of melons that the farmer says no one wants to buy. If the car windows are down to let in the strong southeast breeze, the drone of sprayer motors might be heard and the acrid tang of weedkiller or pesticide may cause the driver to raise the window – but passing the field where the chemical is being applied, a man in his late

20s walks through rows of plants wearing shorts and sneakers with a backpack sprayer, possibly only a handkerchief over his face for ‘protection’. This area, the Pedro Plains, is referred to throughout Jamaica as the country’s ‘breadbasket’ and is home to numerous smallholder farmers.

Nearly all farmers in the area face multiple challenges: getting enough water, very small holdings, limited market access, low commodity prices, and high cost of synthetic inputs.

Anecdotal evidence suggests much of Jamaica's soils are being degraded by high levels of chemical use, but extension agents and private-sector agro-distributors speak of the need for small farmers to abandon “backward” traditional practices.

At the same time, organic farming practices and a ‘local food’ movement are emerging, promoted in part by a local resort owner trying to utilize tourism as a way to both 1) provide a market for local farmers and 2) identify the region as an culinary/agro-tourism destination.

1 Strong cultural influences like Rastafarian and the Seventh Day Adventist Church traditions encourage dietary habits that reinforce sustainable practices. Local farmers have developed specific sustainable practices to successfully cope with the relatively dry climate of the area, reflecting the value of local knowledge and traditional practices in Jamaican agriculture.

As Paul Robbins (1998, 2007) has said of forests in India and lawns in the US, ‘farms’ are discursive constructions as much as they are arrangements of and interactions among soils, climate, topography, plants, humans, animals, and buildings. Meanings are produced and circulated that create certain types of agricultural subjects who interact with the landscape in specific ways, producing specific outcomes.

Around the world, smallholder agriculturalists face pressures resulting from the forces of economic and cultural globalization and promotion of free trade regimes. As a result, smallholder farmers often must compete with largeholder producers, both foreign and domestic, privately held and corporate. For many small so-called ‘developing’ countries, receipt of assistance from multilateral organizations (such as the IMF, World Bank, or Inter-American

Development Bank) is often contingent on accepting terms of ‘free trade’ that benefit the economies of larger countries and are damaging to local producers. This trade liberalization is often included as part of a larger package of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) that set a variety of conditions for fiscal responsibility: reduced budget deficits, contraction of the public sector, increased privatization, and as a result, reduced spending on social programs and services

(Harvey 2005, McDonald 2002). One world region in which many countries face problems related to these SAPs is the Caribbean. Small Caribbean countries such as Jamaica are caught in a global economic regime that on one hand, requires they do not restrict imports of food

2 commodities from larger economies such as the US, Canada, and the EU, while on the other hand, they are less able to provide support for the many poor among their populations.

Meanwhile, cultural aspects of globalization and associated discourses of modernity lead officials in agriculture ministries and extension agents to decry ‘backward’ practices and valorize the trappings and methods of what is framed as ‘modern’ industrial agriculture. In doing so, they promote the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and imported hybrid seeds – all

1 typically manufactured and sold by companies from the First World/social minority countries – in order to maximize farmers’ yields and, as their ads claim, increase profits. At the same time, some agricultural commodities are periodically subject to market gluts and many smallholder farmers suffer from lack of buyers and low prices for their produce. Thus, specific aspects of globalization have contributed to the erosion in Jamaica of both livelihoods among smallholders and national food security by undermining the ability of Jamaican farmers to provide food for their local domestic and intra-Caribbean markets. This situation is faced by many small formerly colonial economies around the world.

While both smallholder agriculture and negative consequences of globalization in many locations have been researched, Jamaica has not been a major focus of study. Jamaica’s profile makes it a useful case study since it shares characteristics with other vulnerable countries: it was once part of a colonial empire; its economy is increasingly based on mass tourism (often

1 The terms ‘social minority’ and ‘social majority’ are used by Esteva and Prakash (1998) to avoid the hierarchical associations inherent in ‘First World/Third World’ or ‘Developed/More Developed/Developing/Underdeveloped/Less Developed’ classification nomenclature. The term also operates at a non-national scale, reflecting the reality that within each country, there exists wide variations of wealth and economic security. Therefore, these terms will be used in this dissertation from this point on.

3 involving foreign or multinational corporate ownership), outsourced 'finishing touch' assembly, and commodity export; finally, it is in a region dominated by the world’s globally hegemonic power of the United States – for the past several decades, the strongest national voice speaking in favor of economic globalization.

This dissertation addresses the problem of marginalization of Jamaican smallholder farmers in the process of the supplying local, national, and export markets with their produce to the degree they are able. A significant aspect of this problem that contributes to this marginalization is the type of agricultural landscape that is produced by farmers' articulation and enactment of interrelated discourses associated with globalization, such as modernity, competition, and individualism. Two closely interrelated questions proceed from this problem: 1)

How have meanings of 'farms' and 'farming' in a small postcolonial state such as Jamaica been shaped by discursive elements of contemporary economic and cultural globalization? 2) What are the effects of these meanings' circulation and enactment in producing the agricultural landscape in a small postcolonial state such as Jamaica? The approach utilized in addressing these questions will be outlined next.

1.2 Conceptual Approach

This dissertation represents research in the ‘Nature and Society,’ or ‘human- environmental’ tradition in geography. I approach it as a geographer working along the Sauerian branch of the discipline’s tree, (1) following the dictum that human culture and the landscape are co-created, and (2) avoiding a positivist approach, concurring in Sauer's (1925) belief that “a good deal of the meaning of area lies beyond scientific regimentation” (104). At the same time, I also agree with Mitchell (2000) in that Sauer portrayed 'culture' as an apolitical entity, neutral

4 and somewhat monolithic, without reference to its contested construction or to different positions of power that enable it to be defined a certain way and consisting of certain things. Whose culture? What culture? Why these and not those aspects of culture? The cultural landscape as framed by Sauer was primarily “concerned with effects, with the shape rather than the shaping of the earth” (Mitchell 2000, 29; emphasis in original). Nonetheless, an important point for this project is that Sauer (1925) placed human agency at the forefront of the formation of the landscape: humans are the agents, the environment is the medium, and the landscape is the result; the landscape contains stories. Agriculture was an important aspect of Sauer's analysis of the landscape, and this focus carries into this dissertation.

One of several paths to emerge from the broadly Sauerian approach was cultural ecology, an approach that sought to establish relationships between the environment and peoples' cultural practices in a non-deterministic way. Followers of Sauer at Berkeley were responsible for a geographic version of cultural ecology that traced the process of landscape formation, but the term 'cultural ecology' is perhaps more commonly associated initially with the anthropologist

Julian Steward. Beginning in the 1950s, Steward's framework posited a 'cultural core' based on subsistence activities around which other cultural elements developed (Steward 1972). Steward was a positivist in orientation, attempting to be nomothetic in describing the way in which

'cultures operated.' By contrast, Denevan (1983, 1992, 2001) stressed the power and role of adaptation as a process of choice and option through which people interacted with and altered their environments. Rappaport (1968) described how sets of cultural practices evolved to maintain the health of ecosystems.

Though cultural ecology did much to debunk the categorization of many people in the formerly colonized world as 'backward' or 'primitive' and presented them instead as possessing a

5 highly complex set of practices and vast knowledge of their local conditions based on long experience, it came in for criticism on several fronts. At times, cultural ecologists presented

'cultures' as closed systems and examined the internal workings and processes of that culture.

However, cultures are dynamic and react and change constantly from exogenous sources as well as internal processes. Cultural ecology frequently stressed ideas such as harmony, stasis, and equilibrium as the 'natural state of affairs' for local environments. Also, the borrowing of concepts from biology such as systems ecology and organicism did not necessarily match the study of human behavior. And finally, the focus on rural people in formerly colonized 'Third

World' settings led to a recognition that the conditions of the environments they inhabited and their choices in how they utilized and interacted with them were often constrained by circumstances and conditions not of their own making, and created far away from them, as was the case in Nietschmann's (1973) analysis of the response to market forces among the Miskito of

Nicaragua and the ensuing environmental results. These shortcomings led to the injection of a more overtly political approach; despite this, elements of cultural ecology remain valuable tools for geographic research, especially of the idiographic type.

In an effort to address the role(s) of power in investigating the ways that a cultural landscape like that of southern Jamaica is produced, I incorporate the complementary approaches of political ecology (PE) and discourse analysis (DA). In doing so, I attempt to shed new light on what has frequently been the subject of positivist approaches in knowledge in economics and agronomy: Jamaica's agricultural landscape.

6 1.3 Political Ecology

Although the term was coined somewhat earlier, political ecology emerged in the late

1980s as a multidisciplinary framework for examining choices made by people regarding their interactions with environments they inhabit in the context of power influences operating at different scales. PE does not represent a coherent specific theory or method, but is an approach, or rather a collection of similar modes of inquiry; it is something that people do (Peet and Watts

1996; Robbins 2004) utilizing a wide variety of texts (Robbins 2012). An oft-cited definition offered in Blaikie and Brookfield's foundational Land Degradation and Society (1987) stated that political ecology "combines the concerns of ecology and a broadly defined political economy.

Together this encompasses the constantly shifting dialectic between society and land-based resources, and also within classes and groups within society itself" (17). The original orientation of PE, consistent with its roots in cultural ecology, frequently analyzed choices and decisions faced by a “land manager” (Blaikie and Brookfield 1987) in isolated rural communities and/or peasant agricultural societies in the “Third World” involved in capitalist transformation (Peet and

Watts 1996). Over the past decade and a half, however, PE has broadened from this original base to include both urban and “First World” settings (Swyngedouw and Heynen 2003; Moore 2006;

Heynen, Kaika, and Swyngedouw 2006) as well as addressing the complex questions of gender, the production of meaning, knowledge construction, and discourse (Escobar 1996; Bryant 1998;

Walker 2005).

Robbins (2004) refers to PE as both a “hatchet” and a “seed.” The 'hatchet' represents a critique of dominant ways of thinking about the environment and the ways in which that thinking is actualized, while the 'seed' represents the possibility for doing things differently – with ostensibly better outcomes for the people who depend on those environmental settings. In this

7 dual role of hatchet and seed, PE plays a useful role in exposing the taken-for-granted, questioning things that are rarely questioned regarding human activities that affect the environment, such as methods and techniques of agricultural production.

PE as I utilize it in this project touches each of these aspects. I will follow a 'traditional'

PE approach in examining choices made by Jamaican farmers in their agricultural practices and the utilization of their environmental resource bases as influenced by asymmetrical power relations at local, national, and global scales. At the same time, my PE reflects the more recent orientations of the approach. These Jamaican farmers do not necessarily match the image of the

'isolated rural Third World peasant' so prevalent in early PE studies. Rather than experiencing isolation, as a result of its early colonization the Caribbean has been integrated to some degree into the “global economy” for some 350-plus years. Whether speaking of commodities such as the sugar cane/rum/molasses complex or bananas sent to metropoles, or provisions such as yams, onions, and legumes, agricultural production has been subject to the influences of foreign competition, shifting consumer preferences, investment speculation, and policies made in distant parliaments (Williams 1984; Mintz 1985; Beckford 1999; Wilk 2006). Additionally, the use of the term 'peasant' in regards to the Caribbean is somewhat problematic. The Caribbean peasantry evolved very differently from the manner it did in Europe or Asia due to the development of the plantation labor system among a people who were not indigenous, but forcibly transplanted as slaves from another part of the world. Therefore, ‘peasant traditions’ in the Caribbean context were not eliminated by ‘modernization,’ but rather developed within the process of modernization itself. In the Caribbean context, a ‘protopeasantry’ emerged as a way for plantation owners to feed their slaves (Besson 2002); this topic will be developed further in

Chapter 2.

8 Further, the PE I employ focuses on the construction of meaning and the production of knowledge, in this case of ‘farming,’ rather than the more static and structural foci prevalent in early PE studies (Bryant 1998; Adger et al. 2001; Bryant and Goodman 2004; Forsyth 2007). To this end, I examine what knowledge comes to be seen as valid, the knowledge that ‘counts’ and has status. Such an examination requires understanding why certain knowledges that are situated, contextual, local, and (frequently) gendered become marginalized (WinklerPrins 1999,

2001; Rocheleau 2007). Additionally, this approach extends PE and as a result, geographic theory. For example, recent work by Galt (2007; 2008; 2010) makes significant contributions to

PE in examining pesticide use in Costa Rica and on vegetable imports to the United States; pesticide and other agrochemical use also figures prominently in this dissertation. However, Galt does not excavate the discursive structures in operation that characterize some of this pesticide use. In order to apprehend the relationship between agricultural practices and the construction of meaning, the roles played by discourse form an important element of PE and geography.

1.4 Discourse Analysis

Discourse analysis as utilized in human geography is based largely on the groundbreaking work of Michel Foucault. Unlike the linguistic approach to the term, by

'discourse,' Foucault was interested “not only with meaning as it is made within language, but as it made within and structures social practices and institutions” (Martusewicz 1992). Discourse in this sense includes language/meanings that are circulated by people as well as practices that produce (and reproduce) those meanings. Discourses are social forces – as are the institutions and practices that support them – that produce knowledge (Martusewicz 1992). These social forces also have material effects. Medina (1998) described discourse as being "a framework of

9 meaning that identifies and links together a set of ideas, institutions, and practices. Discourse

'explains' – and thus shapes – material relationships by identifying specific goals, establishing contexts in which action toward those goals become intelligible, and welding together social alliances in support of particular projects" (29). These goals and contextualized actions shaped and explained by discourse, along with the social alliances that support this project and not that, lead to landscapes being 'operationialized' in certain ways and not others.

Discursive practices delimit a field of thought or knowledge, define the 'legitimate ' approach to it, and set guideposts for the development of concepts and theories regarding it

(Foucault 1977); through this, discourses can be said to produce these very fields of which they speak. They are also “embodied in technical processes, in institutions, in patterns for general behavior, in forms for transmission and diffusion, and in pedagogical forms, which, at once, impose and maintain them” (Foucault 1977, 200). Discourse delimits knowledge and describes a

“regime of truth” that induces, and is extended by, power (Foucault 1980, 133); this power

“applies itself to immediate everyday life which categorizes the individual, marks him by his own individuality, attaches him to his own identity, imposes a law of truth on him which he must recognize and which others have to recognize in him” (212). Therefore, discourses also produce

‘subject positions’ based on these delimitations, processes, transmissions, diffusions, etc., and people identify with/locate themselves at one of these positions and in doing so, become

‘subjects.’ In Foucault's work, (1980) subjects are not created by the repressive nature of power, but rather human beings turn themselves into subjects (208). Discourses, in this thinking, are then about far more than 'how we talk about things' in words or descriptions. Through the complex workings of this 'power/knowledge,' subjects operationalize discourses in material ways, such as producing certain types of landscape.

10 Discourse analysis, then, explores outcomes of discourse in actions, perceptions, and attitudes; identifies frameworks within which statements are produced, circulated, and communicated that regulate ways in which people construct thoughts and identities; and uncovers the mechanisms and supports that maintain certain rules over statements as

“'unchallengeable,', 'normal,' and 'common sense'” (Waite 2005, 164-165). All of these aspects contribute to shaping the meanings of farms and farmers and the production of the landscape in southern St Elizabeth.

As political ecology is concerned with the influence of power operations at different scales in decision-making by individuals, the role of discourse provides fertile ground for PE practicioners. PE frequently explores complex connections between local and global phenomena, including both social-environmental operations and hierarchies of power in decision-making, and as global discourses are often based on shared ideas about the world and how it works, policy ideas about how to 'fix' problems that proceed from them often do not match local conditions and realities (Adger et al. 2001). Robbins (1998) explored at length the ways in which the category of

'forest' as created by government officials in Rajastan was a legacy of the colonial period; this differed greatly from the conceptualizations of ‘forest’ utilized as a means of livelihood, which led to the “erasure of existing local landscapes” (73) and brought state control to lands previously in the hands of villagers. Thus, defining forests a certain way was both a discursive and material act. Other studies combining PE and discourse analysis have examined conflicts as being over meaning and framing narratives about the environment as much as they are about material reality and practices (Bryant 1998; Bryant and Goodman 2004). Using a PE approach to examine the American lawn, Robbins (2007) and Robbins and Sharp (2003) analyzed intersections of discourse and political economy in the role that lawns have played in creating a

11 certain type of American citizen. Speaking of discourse analysis within geography as a whole,

Cresswell (2013) stated, “discourse is implicated in the production of places, and in particular, the judgment of people's practices within places. What counts as acceptable, appropriate behavior, for instance, is often determined by a nexus of place and discourse. Subjects are not contstituted anywhere but on a particular terrain” (213). Further supporting the use of discourse analysis as a tool in human geography, Waitt (2005) pointed out that “when geographers have conducted discourse analysis they have often given voice to how texts operate in processes of social and spatial marginalization” (188).

In this dissertation, many of these elements come together: globally-driven policy ideas about “fixing” Jamaican agriculture based on technical expertise and “modern” approaches, narrative construction and meaning-making, the discursive construction of “farms” acting to background local traditional practices, and connections between discourse and political economy in the trade in and use of agricultural chemicals. Therefore, this research utilizes discourse analysis within a political ecology framework. As discourse is rooted in and made up of formal and informal knowledges, institutions, practices, and interactions, research using discourse analysis requires a broad range of text and data collection; I assume therefore that data from government documents, advertising and promotional materials from agrochemical distributors, public media, and interviews will be productive, interesting, and provide theoretical relevance

(Phillips and Hardy 2002; Rose 2007).

1.5 Methods

This dissertation research proceeds from the position that knowledge is produced and constructed through a process of interactive relationship among multiple parties, not all of whom

12 are socially accorded authoritative status; in other words, knowledge gets made in all kinds of places and by many different actors. This conceptualization of knowledge rejects the colonizing

view inherent in Cartesian and Enlightenment-derived hierarchized dualisms such as human/nature, mind/body, male/female, reason/emotion, civilized/primitive, modern/backward, etc.

A postcolonial epistemology does not exclude women, poor smallholder farmers, the illiterate/semiliterate, or others from the category ‘carriers of knowledge’ and finds fertile ground for the construction of knowledge in the experiences of such traditionally subordinated groups.

Influenced by contributions from feminism, it also rejects the “‘objectivist’ stance that attempts to make the researcher’s cultural beliefs and practices [and positioning] invisible while simultaneously skewering the research objects’ beliefs and practices to the display board”

(Harding 1987: 9). The belief in objectivity as promulgated by much positivist research and science has often led to the domination/colonization/silencing of marginalized populations, contributing to their further marginalization.

From this epistemological foundation, it follows that emotion, attachment, partiality, and involvement are not impediments to conducting research. Rather, they embed the researcher in the relational context that enables the gaining of quality insights and information from a variety of partial perspectives and situated knowledges. Because of the importance of relationships in the construction of knowledge, qualitative methods are appropriate as the primary approach to this research. Qualitative research has as its goal the understanding of the nature of the phenomena being studied (DeWalt and DeWalt 2002). Maxwell (1998) described several research purposes for which qualitative research is particularly useful, including understanding the meaning that events, situations, and actions have for the people involved; understanding the context within

13 which people act and the influence of this context on their actions; and understanding the processes by which events and actions take place. At the same time, the contextual orientation and focus on meanings for participants makes qualitative research useful for collaborations with community members in research aimed at empowerment and action (Maxwell 1998).

Fieldwork for this dissertation was carried out over four consecutive summers in periods of time ranging from just over three weeks to two months. While not a single period of ‘full immersion’ in the field, this approach had several advantages. One was that I was able to speak with the same people over several years and observe changes that a single ‘year in the field’ would not have provided. Another was that I became more familiar with the area, and area people became more familiar with me as I walked around rural areas, was able to take part in community activities – I volunteered at a local ‘summer day camp’ as a football (soccer) coach, for example – and provide some service such as driving local people to doctor appointments or children to school. These activities not only enabled greater access as a researcher, but have enriched my life.

I employed mixed qualitative methods for this research. The first of these followed an ethnographic approach and consisted of fifty-two interviews with people categorized into several

2 different groupings. The largest category was farmers in the study area; thirty-seven of the interviews fell in this category. Farmers were identified through opportunistic and snowball sampling. I would frequently drive into an area of small farms and go around the area on foot, engaging any people I saw working in their fields in conversation. In some cases, I would assist farmers in what they were doing after gaining consent, and conduct the interview while working.

More commonly, farmers would choose to stop in order to talk with me. In very few cases, I met

2 IRB clearance was obtained for this study (Michigan State University IRB#09-375). 14 farmers and made arrangements to come back for the interview at another time. These interviews ranged in length from a few lasting ten minutes to roughly an hour; the average was thirty minutes. Eight farmers declined to have their voices recorded for the interview. For these, notes reconstructing the conversation were taken as immediately after the interview as possible.

Initially, questions followed a semi-structured pattern, but I soon found that interviewees would speak more fully if we had an open conversation within which I would ask usually similar or identical questions: what was growing in the field now, what other things did the person typically grow, how much land was farmed, how prices were for what they grew, how their produce was sold or distributed, what challenges they faced, what policies or programs might address some of those challenges. In some cases, interviewees did not even wait for a question, but would simply start telling me what they thought I should know about their circumstances.

Several farmers were interviewed multiple times over the course of this research, and these subsequent interviews often followed several paths; 'catching up' on new developments or conditions since our last talk was common, but in a few cases, the repeated contact and resulting familiarity facilitated conversations more in the nature of oral history.

The 'non-farmer' category of interviewees had a variety of members: present/former NGO directors, a tourism industry operator, a university researcher, a parish-level official of the extension arm of the Ministry of Agriculture, a field manager of an agro-processing company, and managers of farm stores. Interviews with these actors consisted of questions directed more specifically to their various positions, and none of these interviewees requested that I not record their voices.

Interviews with farmers were used primarily to understand how the farmers themselves articulated the dominant discourses of modernity in agriculture, and to gain insights into 1)

15 farmers' own perceptions about the nature of the different challenges they face, and 2) what knowledge about agriculture that predates the techniques resulting from these discourses is still found and utilized in farmers' lives and practice. Though I came to know a few of them rather well and developed a great affection for many, I took pains to discipline my own subjectivity in the processes of collecting and analyzing these interviews. For example, for those interviews in which recording was not allowed, I attempted to transcribe the interviewee's exact words as fully as possible, and kept my own reflective notes separate from what the interviewee said. In my field notebook, I often set off what I heard people say in large brackets and inserted my own thoughts and comments in margins. Interview transcripts were read for broad themes: crops grown, agro-techniques, methods of distribution, and challenges faced (however, conversations with some interviewees did not necessarily address all themes, but most did). These themes were then coded along commonalities, which were summarized.

The non-farmer interviews had several different objectives, depending on the role or position of the person being interviewed. In the interviews with the extension official, the agro- processing operation manager, and the farm store operators, I followed a similar coding process, as the goal of these was to understand normative discursive formations involving farming practice and attitudes about smallholder farmers themselves. For the current and former NGO participants, I sought to gain their perspectives on non-agro-chemical-intensive practices among

Jamaican farmers in the contemporary context. The remaining non-farmer interviews were done to gain information from and perspectives of specific actors whose work related to this project.

Interviews were transcribed in several locations by several parties. Some were transcribed in the evening while in the field, either on the laptop or by hand (my place of residence did not have electricity) and then typed upon my return. Others were transcribed by two external

16 ‘contractors:’ Franklin Square Services, Inc. based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and the

Jamaican Language Unit at the University of the West Indies at Mona. The latter transcribed the interviews involving the strongest Jamaican Creole (see Chapter 3).

Discourse operates through discursive structures, sets of statements that follow certain rules and limit the manner in which thoughts are constructed (Phillips and Jørgensen 2002) and inform the ways events and objects are understood, producing categories of 'normal' or 'real'.

Discursive structures are repeated across many statements in a wide variety of texts, which are made meaningful through their interconnections with other texts (‘intertextuality’). As discourses circulate through a wide variety of texts and practices, the concept of ‘intertextuality’ requires use of a wide range of sources (Waite 2005). Discourse analysis thus requires multiple approaches to different types of texts.

The first of these involved the use of historical maps and archives, primarily to historicize the topic by discovering original colonial patterns of settlement, land ownership, and agricultural production in the study area. This was carried out at the National Library of Jamaica in downtown Kingston and at the National Archives in Spanish Town, and to a lesser degree in a special collection at the UWI Library. Some of the challenges described below applied to this avenue of research as well; no reproduction of any kind was allowed for historical maps – another US researcher took a photo of a map with his cell phone while I was present, which caused a significant disturbance and the summoning of security – and there was a daily limit of maps that could be accessed. One notebook/pad and two pencils and a laptop were the only things allowed in to the collections, so in addition to notes typed in the computer, I relied on making rough sketches of the areas of interest in a notebook.

17 In addition to the interviews and historical documents, four additional categories of texts were used in this research to establish these discursive structures: 1) documents from multilateral development and lending agencies such as the World Bank, the Inter-American Institute for

Cooperation in Agriculture, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Caribbean

Agriculture and Rural Development Institute; 2) Jamaican government documents such as plans, policy outlines, annual reports, and texts of speeches; 3) academic research journals related to agriculture in the University of the West Indies (UWI) Science Library periodicals collection; and 4) popular press, advertisements, and promotional materials from several sources connected to agriculture. The specific descriptions of how these various categories of texts was utilized is described in the body of this dissertation in the associated discussion, but generally they were coded for comments in several categories: 'backwardness'/resistance to change of small farmers, modernity, efficiency and competitiveness, and technology.

Conducting this research in Jamaica presented several challenges. There was significant

'red tape' that required negotiation in order to access research materials. Even with a letter from the Department Head of Geography and Geology at UWI extending use of the facilities to me, I had to get approval from a UWI Library official (and pay a US$50 fee) to be allowed into the

Main Library for a two-week period, which did not include check-out privileges. One could not enter special collections such as the World Bank Country repository and browse; one needed to request specific titles, which presented a difficulty, as I did not know them and found aspects of the cataloging system impenetrable. Fortunately, I was able to meet a sympathetic Library assistant who had a very positive view of this research and allowed me one ten-minute trip into this collection to grab whatever looked promising, which I was only allowed to examine at a desk in the office. The Social Science Library and the Science Libraries were reserved only for

18 graduate students at UWI, so I had to convince student monitors to admit me on the basis of my introductory letter, my temporary Main Library pass, and my Michigan State University ID. A

Social Science Library director complained that the Planning Institute was a year behind in getting the most recent publications to them, and I could not access stacks in the Science Library; requests for any books had to go through the desk.

In addition to data gleaned from such documents described above, I also conducted supermarket surveys. Data on the origins of produce available for sale in supermarkets was collected by direct observation and dictation into a hand-held digital recorder. Supermarkets in

Pedro Cross, Junction, Black River, Green Island, Mandeville, New Kingston, Waterhouse,

Spanish Town, and the tourist mecca of Negril were surveyed; some of these locations had more than one supermarket and several supermarkets were surveyed multiple times over different years (Appendix B). These data were tallied and compared for differences among locations and change across time, and provided an important perspective for a part of Chapter 3.

I sought to use these different texts in a process of triangulation. When an interviewee told me something in an interview or I observed a practice, I tried to connect it to historical sources, government/multilateral agency documents, newspaper articles, promotional materials, etc. The reverse was also true: I tried to link what appeared in documents to what interviewees said and to what I observed in the field.

1.6 The State of Modernity

Being 'modern' is a condition framed as the binary opposite of being 'backward.' Modernity (or modernization) is a state of being in constant transformation towards what is perceived to be a better world and better life, even while an awareness lingers of what is lost in that

19 transformation; it is contradictory in both being condemned as destructive and embraced as the only way forward, in the recognition that it causes problems and the simultaneous faith that whatever these problems may be, “the modernities of tomorrow will heal the wounds that wreck the modern men and women of today” (Berman 1988, 23). A manifesto by Italian futurist painters in the first decade of the twentieth century serves as an apt, if rather unrestrained, illustration of an ethos of modernity: “Comrades, we tell you now that the triumphant progress of science makes changes in humanity inevitable, changes that are hacking an abyss between those docile slaves of tradition and us free moderns who are confident in the radiant splendor of our future” (Boccioni et al. 1910, cited in Berman 1988, 24-25). Modernity and the state of

'being/becoming modern' is presented as a dynamic temporal process, a moving forward, an acceleration, a breaking with what has been done before, a moving away (joyously, as indicated in the quotation) from what is defined by contrast as an “archaic and stable past” (Latour 1993,

10; in doing so, modernity establishes that past as radically different from the present (Trouillot

2002).

The passage from the futurist painters’ manifesto cited in the previous paragraph makes clear the relationship between modernity and both science and its corollary assumption of a generalized, linear, and as the passage states, triumphalist vision of progress. Modernity's first phase as described by Berman (1988) ran roughly from the start of the sixteenth century through the end of the eighteenth century, identified in standard high school and college Western

Civilization survey courses as the period marked by the beginnings of the 'Scientific Revolution' and featuring Copernicus, Bacon, Descartes, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Locke, Rousseau, and the rest of the writers, scientists, and thinkers associated with the Enlightenment and/or its antecedents. During this era, rationalist and positivist perspectives were elevated above all other

20 ways of knowing, forever banishing 'superstition' from the realm of what constituted

'knowledge,' and in so doing, constructed a mechanistic view of the universe and brought about the separation of humans from Nature (Merchant 1983; Latour 1993). Progress in this view became an ideology which “museumizes other forms of knowledge in its name...[it] renders obsolescent ways of life, which are abandoned because of the changing nature of technology”

(Visvanathan 2007, 90).

This point has important ramifications for the ways in which dominant cultural perspectives (typically white, male, heteronormative) have historically conceptualized and constructed Others in general, and with particular applications to the Caribbean. This process of

Othering has often been based on a 'logic of domination' (Warren 1998) that emerges from this human/nature separation. A crucial element of this logic of domination is the concept of centric thinking and 'hyperseparation' examined in the work of Val Plumwood (1993; 2002). She describes the binary human/nature relationship that emerged from Enlightenment thinking as “a dominant centrism that sets up one term as primary or as centre and defines marginal others as secondary...as deficient in relation to the centre” (Plumwood 2002, 101). Following this line, those born into the 'Western, heirs-of-the-Enlightenment' culture – recognizing the wide range of variations existing in such a broad term – emerge with an identity that is separate from the rest of the systems that comprise the so-called 'Natural' world. With such an identity in place, it is a short step to then apply the same types of dominant centrism to other people in the role of the marginal others.

The development of the scientific method of inquiry as the only valid path to knowledge and the Enlightenment and its associated elevation of Reason contributed significantly through their reinforcement of a set of hierarchized dualisms, in which one element was by definition

21 both 1) the opposite of and 2) inferior to the other. Since Reason and a somewhat narrowly defined human quality of thinking (Descartes' famous dictum cogito ergo sum, for example, does not consider the possibility of 'thinking' as being anything other than what Descartes imagines it

3 to be in its definition of what constitutes 'being') are both privileged qualities in this conceptualization, they become the chief markers of what it means to be fully human. By extension, the other element of the binary conceptual pair – in Foucault's terms, the marginalized

'absence' that is opposed to the valorized 'presence' (Gregory 1998) – is a marker of being less- than-fully human. Thus, those who/that which does not 'think,' does not/cannot apply 'reason' are not fully human: 'Nature' is therefore separated as the inferior or 'absent' counterpart to 'Human.'

A number of these binary distinctions or hierarchized dualisms derive from this preliminary one, since that which is framed as closer to Reason (more fully human) is superior to that which is framed as closer to Nature. A series of dualisms that are hierarchically determined therefore ensue: reason/emotion, mind/body, male/female, civilized/primitive. In each of these examples, the second element is defined by its inferiority to the initial, creating the context for the logic of domination discussed by Warren (1998). Because they were 'less rational and more emotional,' more 'body' than 'mind,' and closer to Nature through the act of childbirth, women in social minority countries were denied the vote and entrance to higher education in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; the argument was made that this was for their own good, since their reproductive capacity would be physically damaged by engaging in activities so contrary to their 'natural constitution!' The same Euro-sensibility based on these hierarchized dualisms justified the appropriation of the lands of indigenous peoples in the Americas and the enslavement of Africans (they were ‘savages’ that were ‘like animals’' as opposed to being

3 For a significantly broader treatment of the concept of 'mind' see Bateson (2000). 22 'civilized'), both of which are relevant to the historical and contemporary conditions and circumstances of Jamaica.

The European colonizers saw the people they conquered as they presumed them to be, but the Zeitgeist required some type of empirical support for their self-fulfilling visions. The role of science as ultimate determiner of what constitutes knowledge due to its alleged stance of objectivity played a significant role in the process of Othering based on ‘race’ upon which slavery and similar types of exploitation depended. Science as it emerged from the

Enlightenment has been “seen not as a persuasive enterprise, but as a claim to true knowledge”

(Pickles 1992, 197). The putative Voyages of Discovery undertaken by Europeans in the late fifteenth through early eighteenth centuries included naturalists whose duties included collecting specimens of all types of organisms found to bring home in order that they could be classified, catalogued, and known in the objective scientific settings of the museum and laboratory; this was a type of colonization that often preceded the actual claiming of territory (Barthes 1980; Wood and Pels 1986; Latour 1987; Harley 1992). Following to Barthes (1980) and Wood and Pels

(1986), Harley (1992) makes the point clear: “to catalogue the world is to appropriate it” (245).

When the analyses of these specimens included human remains (and on occasion, live humans), they led to the classification of different subgroups of people according to scientific principles.

Thus, based on his collection of skulls, Johann Blumenbach created a hierarchy of humans based on perceptions of beauty that began with the Caucasian skull as the standard

4 against which the others were judged in varying degrees of deficiency. (Gould 1996, 1998;

4 Gould (1996; 1998) comments on the irony in this, as he identifies Blumenbach as perhaps the least racist of Enlightenment-era writers; one who believed in the unity of humankind and who was an opponent of slavery. 23 5 Painter 2003). In the early nineteenth century, a Khoikhoi woman from southern Africa was brought to Paris to be exhibited, and was examined by a group of scientists that included

Georges Cuvier, chair of animal anatomy at the Museum of Natural History; after her death in late 1815, her cadaver was dissected in the interest of scientific investigation (Fausto-Sterling

2001). In a publication the following year, it was revealed that scientists undertook a comparison of her head and facial features to see where 'Hottentots' stood in relation to “the lowest race of humans, the Negro race, and the highest race of monkeys, the orangutan” (quoted in Fausto-

Sterling 2001, 354); the study concluded that the 'Hottentot' was linked more closely to the orangutan. This example shows both 1) the working of hierarchial dualisms as a foundation of centric thinking in which what is considered 'closer to Nature' is inferiorized, and 2) that assertions of scientific objectivity that emerged in the valorization of reason in the Enlightenment project of modernity were instrumental in shaping the context that justified the colonization of the Caribbean, the decimation of the indigenous peoples, the enslavement of Africans, and the subsequent creation of the plantation system. Blaut (1993) reinforced this position in summarizing Jung’s view as “only European man is rational” (98), and attributing to Weber the notion of ‘rationality-as-European-idea’ (102).

As the above section makes clear, the idea of modernity is connected closely to the achievements of an objective and dispassionate science, employed in the pursuit of achieving a better world. Science in many ways was the driver of modernity, and as modernity advanced, new discoveries in science would in turn increase levels of modernity. The two became inseparable, and have developed into what Foucault (1980) referred to as 'disciplines' that

5 The common European term for these people were 'Hottentots,' in a mocking of the unintelligible (to Europeans) variety of clicking sounds that are common in Khoisan languages of southern Africa. 24 have their own discourse. They engender apparatuses of knowledge and a multiplicity of new domains of understanding. They are extraordinarily inventive participants in the order of these knowledge-producing apparatuses...[they] may well be the carriers of a discourse that speaks of a rule...a natural rule, a norm. The code they come to define is not that of law but of normalisation (106).

These 'knowledge-producing apparatuses' create loci of power, through their shaping of the organization of knowledge. Science becomes a “technology of power” (Harley 1992, 244), and the keys to this power are the scientific method and postivist research orientations that offer a gloss of projected scientific objectivity. It is power that operates through the ability to shape systems of thought (Harris 1991; Gregory 1998). It is a power that, rather than being violent in itself and merely destructive, it “incites, it induces, it seduces, it makes easier or more difficult...What defines a relationship of power is that it is a mode of action which does not act directly and immediately on others. Instead it acts upon their actions” (Foucault 1982, 220), and in so doing, power is also productive.

By way of example, we should consider this relationship of 'recursive generation' between modernity and science. At the most basic, simply conceptualizing the categories of 'modern' and

'modernity' is itself an act of production. Further, these categories or qualities cannot exist without being defined in ways that create additional categories: those who are 'not modern' and

6 the state or quality of 'backwardness.' This example, however, does not illustrate the only way that power acts in a productive capacity. The dynamic process of modernity requires scientific and technological advancement in order to not stagnate, which in turn requires scientists and

6 This is the point Esteva (1992) made in saying that President Truman's 1949 Inaugural Address first invoked the terms 'underdeveloped areas' and 'a program of development,' and in so doing created the state of underdevelopment in all the ways we have come to think of it since: "On that day, two billion people became underdeveloped...they ceased being what they were...and were transmogrified into an inverted mirror of others' reality...a mirror that defines their identity..." (Esteva 1992, 7). 25 engineers to apply their specific types of expertise to bring about this scientific and technological advancement. Expertise requires experts, whose status as such produces the power they so often possess (Mitchell 2002).

Although Pickles (1992), Harley (1992), and Ó Tuathail (1992) are addressing specific knowledge areas – the first two discuss maps while the last analyzes foreign policy formation in the Cold War era – their discussions all converge with the broader points being made here: the ways in which power is inscribed in supposedly objective scientific representations of reality; science and rationality are framed as ultimate representations based on their 'objective disinterestedness.' Science is presented as having an apolitical history, as rational, cumulative, continuous; a linear progression that is as irresistible as it is necessary…science is “conducted in

victorious time, which has no place for defeated knowledges” (Visvanathan 2007, 90). The power of science to describe, to define, to represent, to provide solutions, etc. flows from this. As

Harley (1992) makes clear, “in scientific representations of the world, science itself becomes a metaphor” (245) for reality.

In describing the organization of the post-World War II world around the perception of the

Soviet threat and an idealized vision of modernization, Ó Tuathail (1992) followed Baudrillard

(1983, 1987) in explaining the role of 'scripts' in shaping foreign policy. This approach applies equally effectively for modernity and development as well. 'Scripts' are “a set of representations, a collection of descriptions, scenarios, and attributes deemed appropriate to defining [a place]”

(Ó Tuathail 1992, 156), or for purposes in this writing, a field such as modernity or progress; they are involved in the construction of what is deemed 'real.' An operating script “precedes and appropriates...events as part of itself, marginalizing alternative meanings and scripts” (Ó Tuathail

1992, 157), to the point of what Baudrillard calls hyperreality: a state where “reality has lost its

26 referents, and models, or simulations, or scripts becomes more real than the real itself” (Ó

Tuathail 1992, 157). 'Progress' as a concept cannot be argued against; approaches based on scientific analysis and study carry the weight of truth in formulating strategies to develop the underdeveloped. Using the 'dispassionate factualism' of scientific discourse, bureaucrats, planners, and developers, along with agricultural extension agents, agrochemical manufacturers and sales representatives, and Ministry functionaries can easily “operate on the bodies of unique places without measuring the social dislocations of 'progress'” (Harley 1992, 247; Ferguson

1994). Few better illustrations of this thinking could be found than C.E. Ayres' forward to the

1962 edition of his book The Theory of Economic Progress that had first appeared twenty two years earlier: “Since the technological revolution is itself irresistible, the arbitrary authority and irrational values of pre-scientific, pre-industrial cultures are doomed...the only remaining alternative is that of intelligent, voluntary acceptance of the industrial way of life and the values that go with it” (xxiv-xxv, cited in Sbert 1992).

In a material sense, modernity has come to be associated with the opposing of tradition and celebration of change, the inevitability of improvement through a linear progress based on the consistent advancement in technologies that will bring abundance, health, and overall well- being; belief in science as the only legitimate way of knowing; faith in the positive transformative power of technology and undertaking teleologic action to actualize these beliefs; through all of this and the application of reason and rational planning, mastery over nature will be achieved (Berman 1988; Harvey 1990; Shiva 1993; Wilk 2006; Strohmeyer 2009;

Martusewicz, Edmundson, and Lupinacci 2011). Harvey (1990) also spoke of the sense of the ephemeral, fleeting character of 'the modern,' that had “no respect even for its own past, let alone that of any pre-modern social order” (11), which therefore entailed a breaking of any sense of

27 historical continuity. There exists “an epistemological myth...of cumulative progress of an objective science always producing better delineations of society” (Harley 1992, 247).

Thus, an inseparably twinned pair of 'modernity' and 'science' mutually reinforce each other, each driving the other in turn to hasten the uplifting of humankind – and banish the backwardness of the past. Mitchell (2002) put it thus: “From the opening of the twentieth century to its close, the politics of national development and economic growth was a politics of techno- science, which claimed to bring the expertise of modern engineering, technology, and social science to improve the defects of nature, to transform peasant agriculture, to repair the ills of society, and to fix the economy” (Mitchell 2002, 15). As will be demonstrated in following chapters, these same techno-politics were in operation in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean as well as in the Egypt on which Mitchell (2002) brought his focus.

Mitchell's (2002) use of the phrase 'fix the economy' in the previous paragraph’s quotation is worthy of further attention, as it alludes to one of the main points addressed in the work: the creation of 'the economy,' a process that Arturo Escobar (1992) tellingly refers to as an

7 "invention" (132). This usage only came into widespread use between 1930 and 1950, and the economy came to be seen as a "distinct social sphere...the realm of social science, statistical enumeration, and government policy (Mitchell 2002, 81). Use of the definite article transformed meaning from a set of exchange relations and principles into a thing. In becoming such, it became also an object that could be fixed, something towards which experts could focus the analytical (and therefore reductionist) lens of science, both physical and social, in order to

7 Mitchell (2002) disagreed with this term, stating that economy was made in this time period, and was something 'real' and not an imaginary invention (82). I agree with Mitchell on its reality, but at the same time do not think Escobar's (1992) use of the term 'invented' necessarily makes it less so. 28 understand and act upon it. Conceptualizing the economy, and later the global economy, in such a way is one of the obvious examples of 'the modern' having distinct geographical impacts.

Once the economy had come into existence as a bounded, discrete realm of activity, several other ideas appeared as well. Existence of the economy rationalizes, requires in fact, the concept of competition in a kind of zero-sum game that proceeds infinitely without a time clock.

The economy is dependent on private property, a concept that had to be established and was maintained through violence (Mitchell 2002). Researchers had to apply rational scientific analyses to explain its workings and develop prescriptions and strategies for its maintenance, expansion, and/or improvement. Models were created that represented how the economy really functioned.

One well known illustrative example is what has come to be known as the 'modernization model' developed by Walt Rostow (1959, 1960). In this highly Eurocentric analysis, societies went through a set of universal stages driven along by technological advances within an interacting set of conditions – social, cultural, and economic – that were suited to modernization

(Peet and Hartwick 2009). Traditional Society, Preconditions for Takeoff, Takeoff, Drive to

Maturity, and High Mass Consumption: these stages were facts true for all societies, all of whom were positioned on a path from backward to advanced, traditional to modern (Peet and Hartwick

2009). Indeed, the process involved in what became known as ‘Third World’ countries achieving prosperity involved mimicking the technological and economic behaviors of the formerly colonial countries, since according to this view, Europe's history was modernization, so that

“Europe’s past formula…was the only path to non-Europe’s future development” (Blaut 1993,

53).

29 Impacts on the landscape resulting from the acceptance of this model are many. Rostow

(1959) wrote of people in traditional societies lacking a “systematic understanding of their environment capable of making invention a more or less regular current flow...they lacked...the tools and the outlook towards the physical world of the post-Newtonian era” (4). Put another way, they had developed ways of living that enabled them to live for long periods in particular

8 ecosystems without decimating the environment on which they depended. In remedying this lack, Escobar (1992) emphasized the role of planning, itself an actualization of the rational, modern impulse, in “overcoming or eradication of 'traditions,' 'obstacles,' and 'irrationalities'...the modification of existing human and social structures with rational new ones” (135). People needed to live in different ways engaged in different activities to meet their material needs, perhaps in different places, in order to create a more rational set of conditions that would allow the economy to go through its natural progression to the ultimate stage of 'high mass consumption.' This was defined succinctly by Peet and Hartwick (2009) as the circumstance that allows “people to consume at levels far in excess of needs” (128).

Consider the elements necessary for the transition to this last phase from Rostow's starting point, the 'Traditional society:' movements of populations, creation of transportation networks, development of the money-based economy, building a system of cities along with their necessary infrastructures, and, most importantly, the discovery, acquisition, and exploitation of the natural resources necessary to accomplish all this, and one sees monumental change effected on the landscape. The modern society required an urban-based population and was based on economic growth (Escobar 1992); this in turn required shifting those on the land engaged in low-

8 Conversely, poet Gary Snyder refers to people in such conditions as part of 'mature cultures;' see Turtle Island (1975). 30 efficiency subsistence agriculture to wage-based jobs in cities, which were ideally based on rational planning designs that would render them 'legible' by those in power (Scott 1998). Those who remained in agriculture would act in such a way as to maximize efficiency, with rationalized practices such as mechanization and agrochemical use, commodified land use and exchange patterns, monocrop production in straight rows, and the overall goal of maximizing marginal returns. Specific discussion of this process as regards Caribbean agriculture will be offered in

Chapter 3.

Effects of modernity and modernization have appeared on the landscape in myriad ways.

In the 1600 and 1700s, the colonialist impulse was at least in part based on modernist ideas, as was the development of the European 'state' model of political organization itself. Though the plantation system predates industrialization, the design and operation of the plantations follow the modernist mindset; the Industrial Revolution's sociospatial aspects such as changing the nature and location of 'work' and the tying together of different locations in what would come to be called 'commodity chains' provide another example. The construction of interstate highways, motorways, Autobahnen, etc. all were accomplished in order to maximize the circulation of people and goods necessary for a modern state with a modern economy (and mechanized military). Modernism as an architectural style which included (but was certainly not limited to) the 'urban renewal' movement in the 1960s United States that saw the destruction of historic buildings, the bifurcation of urban areas by highways, and the construction of massive

9 anonymous housing projects are other good examples. Ivan Illich (1992) spoke of the visual result of economic modernization and development: “No matter where you travel, the landscape is recognizable...cooling towers and parking lots, agribusiness and megacities” (88).

9 It is important to note that not all of these projects were failures. 31 Because of the colonial experience and its various legacies, these aspects of modernism and modernization came to bear on the landscapes and inhabitants of the Caribbean. Michel-

Rolph Trouillot (2002) spoke of colonialism's 'imposed modernization' and quoted Eric Wolf describing the Caribbean as a “world area in which modernity first deployed its powers” (228).

In Trouillot's own words, the Caribbean was “the area longest under European control outside of

Europe itself, and the only one where Europeans moved as if it was indeed empty land, terra nullis, to be fashioned along modern lines” (232-233). This movement continues to shape the landscapes of the Caribbean in a variety of ways to this very day.

1.7 Outline of the dissertation

Six chapters follow this introductory one. Chapter Two describes the context for the dissertation, beginning with physical characteristics of the Caribbean region before focusing specifically on Jamaica. Characteristics of Jamaica's geomorphology, soils, and climate are described, which help explain some of the elements of the following section. The cultural- historical context follows, beginning with an overview of the indigenous people who inhabited the island. The experience of European colonization comes next, both by the Spanish and afterwards by the English, with a discussion of the origins of the sugar plantation system, aspects of which reverberate and resonate in various ways in Jamaican society to the present day. The final section of the chapter describes the study area in south St Elizabeth parish, following the organization of the broader chapter: physical characteristics first, historical-cultural characteristics afterwards. This part of Jamaica presents an interesting contrast in several ways with the rest of the island, both in terms of its climate, history, and in the ethnocultural origins of many of its people. Chapter Three moves on from this context-setting to present an overview of

32 agriculture in Jamaica. The 'dualism' stemming from the plantation history forms an important part of this chapter, along with attitudes about food and agriculture that are linked to the plantation society that emerged in the aftermath of the plantation economy. Some current data on food production in Jamaica is included in this chapter.

Chapter Four presents the voices of farmers in the region, describing their thoughts about the challenges they face and talking about their practices. These farmers' forthright and candid comments often reflect various ways that their circumstances are constrained by decisions made far from their fields at the same time they offer insights into their agency in negotiating those constraints. The following chapter takes the other point of view, and presents ideas about farmers voiced by various nonfarmer actors in addition to tracing some of the discursive formations that delimit the boundaries of what it means 'to farm' in contemporary Jamaica. Chapter Six offers examples of alternative paths and potential (and actual) sites of resistance to the dominant discourses described in the previous chapter that already exist and operate within Jamaica. The final chapter is a conclusion, which includes avenues of further research and a discussion of some of the implications stemming from this project.

33 CHAPTER 2: THE CONTEXT: JAMAICA, THE CARIBBEAN, AND STUDY AREA

Part I: Jamaica and the Caribbean

2.1. Physical Characteristics

This chapter describes the setting and contexts for the remainder of the dissertation, and is divided into two parts. The first part addresses both the Caribbean region as a whole and

Jamaica specifically. In the initial section, the physical setting and characteristics of Jamaica will be described. Following that, an outline of the key historical events and the cultural context of

Jamaica within the Caribbean region will be offered. The second part of the chapter will describe of the study area in south St Elizabeth parish, and follow a similar structure as the first part: physical characteristics followed by a historical/cultural overview.

The islands of the Caribbean stretch over 2700 km west-to-east and 1570 km from north- to-south. They span approximately twenty-five degrees of longitude (from 59 degrees 30 minutes west in Barbados to 85 degrees west at Cabo San Antonio, Cuba) and approximately 13 degrees of latitude (23 degrees north at Havana, Cuba to 10 degrees north in southern Trinidad) and create a roughly 4000 km arc from western Cuba to Aruba (Blume 1968). The Caribbean islands range in size from Cuba at 110,922 sq. km to Saba in the Lesser Antilles (13 sq. km) to tiny rock outcroppings (Watts 1987; Goode's 2005).

While the Lesser Antilles to the east form a mostly north-south arc of small islands of both volcanic and coral origins, Jamaica is part the Caribbean island group of the Greater

Antilles, which also includes Cuba, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico. These islands, along with northern Central America (plus the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas), make up "the oldest and most complex physiographic and tectonic area of Middle America" (West and Augelli 1976,

34 31). The islands of the Greater Antilles and the continental/isthmian area were likely once part of a single landmass referred to as "Old Antillia," formed around 100 million years ago in the

Cretaceous Era (West and Augelli 1976, 31; Richardson 1992, 15). Areas that were part of this

"Old Antillia" are characterized by rugged, east-west oriented mountain ranges that dominate all of the islands except Cuba, which has extensive plains in addition to the Sierra Maestra in the southeast. Along with these mountains, which reach heights of 3175 m in Hispaniola (Pico

Duarte in the Dominican Republic), 2257m in Jamaica's Blue Mountains, 1972 m in Cuba, and

1065 m in Puerto Rico, the region's tectonic activity is evidenced by longitudinal depressions and submarine trenches (Blume 1974; West and Augelli 1976; Richardson 1992). This tectonic activity is also amply demonstrated by continued volcanic activity in the Lesser Antilles, with numerous destructive eruptions from the twentieth into the twenty-first century, from

Martinique's Mt Pelée in 1902, which buried the town of St Pierre and took the lives of over 30

000 people (Watts 1987) to the 1997 eruption on Monserrat that destroyed the capital of

Plymouth and rendered two thirds of the island uninhabitable, with further eruptions in 2001 and

2003 (William 1997; Government of Monserrat and the Monserrat Volcano Observatory 1999;

Sustainable Ecosystems Institute 2000). In addition to the vulcanism evident in the Lesser

Antilles, the Greater Antilles have experienced severe earthquakes, such as the massive 1692 quake that caused the infamous buccaneers' den of Port Royal in Jamaica to fall into the sea along with another 1907 destructive quake in the same region (Watts 1987; University of the

West Indies Earthquake Unit 2012; U.S. Geological Survey 2012). The Haitian earthquake of

2010 further demonstrates that this tectonic instability remains a hazard for those living in the

Caribbean; the devastating impacts of this quake are still very much in evidence as of this writing in early 2013.

35 Owing to their locations in low latitudes (between 23 degrees and 10 degrees North), all

Caribbean areas with the exception of isolated highlands experience climates dominated by warm average temperatures with little annual variation. Though a few locations are more arid, the Caribbean region as a whole is dominated by humid "A" climates in the Köppen-Geiger classification system; these are primarily Am (Tropical Monsoon) or Aw (Tropical Wet-and-Dry with dry winter) climates with a scattering of Af (Tropical fully humid/Tropical Rainforest) climates in higher elevations on Hispaniola and some volcanic islands of the Lesser Antilles

(West and Augelli 1976; Kotteck et al. 2006). Due to the combination of region's latitudinal position and location on the western side of the Atlantic Ocean, hurricanes are not infrequent occurrences. These, as well as tropical cyclones that do not reach hurricane level, often develop off the West African coast during the months of July through October, when the thermal equator's shift northward has warmed sea surface temperatures to a point that they allow small pockets of abnormally low pressure to develop. The Caribbean region is typically hit by anywhere from five to a dozen hurricanes in a typical season (Blume 1974; West and Augelli 1976). During the particularly active 2005 season, 28 named tropical storms hit the Caribbean, with fourteen full- fledged hurricanes, seven of which qualified as Category 3-5 or “major” hurricanes (Holland and

Webster 2007).

At 10,991 sq. km, the island country of Jamaica is only about a tenth the size of Cuba and far smaller than Hispaniola (76,480 sq. km) but slightly larger than Puerto Rico (9,104 sq. km); it is roughly comparable in size to Lebanon, the Gambia, or the US state of Connecticut (Goode's

2005). Not including exposed reefs or small cays, the island extends approximately three degrees of longitude/230 km from east to west from Negril Point to Morant Point, and 0.5 degrees of latitude/70 km from north to south from Rose Hall to Portland Point (Figure 2.1).

36 Currently, it is organized into fourteen subdivisions called "parishes" (Statistical Institute of

Jamaica 20), although this number has varied with as few as seven in 1655 and as many as twenty in the mid-nineteenth century (Jamaica Daily Gleaner 2001). Each parish touches the coast; there are no landlocked parishes, though this also was not always the case (Jamaica Daily

Gleaner 2001). The contemporary parishes of Jamaica from west to east along the north coast are

Hanover, St James, Trelawny, St Ann, St Mary, and Portland; the south coast parishes from west to east are Westmoreland, St Elizabeth, Manchester, Clarendon, St Catherine, Kingston, St

9 Andrew, and St Thomas (Fig. 2.1).

Like much of the rest of "Old Antillia," Jamaica is characterized by mountainous topography, with only limited areas of coastal or alluvial plains; Asprey and Robbins (1953) reported that over 50% of the island lies at elevations greater than 300 m (1000 feet). As is the case in the other Greater Antilles, most of the mountains are limestone. The broad geology of the island can be described as an igneous and metamorphic core, much of which is covered "by a limestone mantle deposited during several marine submergences. The surface consists of approximately two-thirds limestone with the other third of igneous rock, sedimentary shales and alluvium" (Asprey and Robbins 1953, 361). Much of Jamaica's coastal areas are characterized by alluvium of Pleistocene and recent origin, while the island's uplands are mostly white limestone of the Middle Eocene (roughly 49 to 37 million years b.p.) and Upper Miocene (roughly 23 million to 16 million years b.p.), or yellow limestone from the Middle Eocene (National Atlas of

Jamaica 1971). Seventy-five percent of the surface rock is made up of limestone, sometimes

2000 feet thick (Asprey and Robbins 1953, 361). An interrupted band of

9 The capital city of Kingston constitutes its own parish, but because of its small spatial extent, for statistical purposes it is often combined with the parish within which it primarily lies, and is commonly referred to as 'Kingston-St Andrew.' 37 Figure 2.1. Physical-Political Map of Jamaica (Source: National Geographic basemap, ESRI ArcMap 2011)

NOTES: 1) For interpretation of the references to color in this and all other figures, the reader is referred to the electronic copy of this dissertation. 2) Internal text on this image may not be legible due to reproduction format requirements and is therefore for visual reference purposes only.

38 sedimentary/metamorphic/igneous formations of the Upper Cretaceous (roughly 100 to 66 million years b.p.) stretches from the northwest in Hanover and St James, through northern

Clarendon and southern St Ann, to become the predominant structural features in the southeastparts of the island and create the highest elevations in the island in northern St Andrew,

Portland, and St Thomas.

Like each of the other islands of the Greater Antilles, Jamaica has an area of karst topography, while in the Lesser Antilles to the east, only Guadeloupe has any karst at all (Blume

1974; West and Augelli 1976). In Jamaica, karst is found in the west central part of the island and is called "The Cockpit Country," named for the circular sinkhole depressions that resemble the circular arenas in which (now illegal) cockfights were historically held. These sinkholes are 100 m-120 m deep and have slopes of 30-40 degrees (Windsor Research Centre n.d.). The Cockpits cover areas of northern St Elizabeth, southern Trelawny, the southeast corner of St James, the northwest corner of Manchester, and the southwest corner of St Ann. The Cockpit Country is of more than geologic interest; the characteristic topography had significant impacts on Jamaica's human history. The region served as the refuge of the Windward Maroons (discussed further below). These were escaped slaves mixed perhaps along with remnant Amerindian peoples who took advantage of its rugged terrain and inaccessibility to establish an African-based society separate from colonial Jamaica and wage guerrilla war against the plantations until the British sued for peace in 1739 and granted them roughly 1500 acres to hold in perpetuity (Wright 1970;

Kopytoff 1976; Knight 1990; Richardson 1992; Kilby 1997).

Lying approximately eighteen degrees north of the equator, Jamaica's climate consists of variations within the designation of "tropical" and as such, experiences a narrow annual range of temperatures that remain very mild due to the generally high levels of insolation. Coastal areas of

39 the island have an average annual temperature of just over 29 degrees Celsius (C), with average daytime maxima of just over 30 degrees C and daytime minima of 22 degrees C; inland areas experience lower temperatures that vary with elevation (Meteorological Service of Jamaica

2002). Nighttime temperatures near the coast range from 18.9 to 25.6 degrees C, and as a whole, diurnal temperature variations exceed those measured on an annual basis; in the mountainous interor these can exceed 11 degrees C and interior areas over 610 m have had occasional Typical for the island as a whole, Kingston's coolest month is typically February with an average of 24.3 degrees C and its warmest month is July, which averages 27.4 degrees C (Asprey and Robbins

1953). Some locations differ from this, however; some areas of south St Elizabeth can experience their warmest periods in late May or into June, according to local informants.

Jamaica's combined maritime location and small size result in typically humid conditions.

The island lies in the path of the northeasterly trade winds that bring both energy and moisture from the Atlantic; Watts (1987) refers to these as being "among the most constant and energy- rich winds on earth" (13). While a few highland areas receive consistent enough rainfall to be classified as "Tropical Rainforest" (Af in the Köppen-Geiger classification), most of the island is subject to a seasonal fluctuation sufficient to be designated as "Tropical Wet-and-Dry," or Aw

(tropical with dry winter) according to the Köppen-Geiger system (Asprey and Robbins 1953,

West and Augelli 1976; Henneman and Mantel 1995). The seasonal and areal distribution patterns of precipitation are significant in shaping the historical (colonial plantation) and contemporary agricultural patterns, so these will be discussed next in some detail.

Overall rainfall patterns are consistent across the island, with a bimodal maximum (Fig.

2.2). A primary peak occurs in October with another of lesser magnitude in May

(Meteorological Service of Jamaica 2012). Some parishes (as well as some locations

40 300

250

200

150

100

0 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Figure 2.2. Jamaica Mean Monthly Rainfall Averages in mm, 1951-1980 (Source: Jamaica Meteorological Service 2002)

within parishes) vary from the typical pattern, however (Table 2.1). In St Ann, St Mary, and

Portland, the main maximum occurs in November rather than October, and in Hanover the secondary maximum takes place in June rather than May. Table 2.1 also indicates the wide

10 fluctuations through the year in some parishes. The Jamaica Meteorological Service

(2012)reported that 30-year rainfall averages from 1971-2000 do not vary significantly from the previous 30-year average (1951-1980). Though the wet periods have been slightly drier and dryperiods have been slightly wetter during the 30-year period ending in 2000, the overall patterns of rainfall for the island remain the same (Meteorological Service Jamaica 2012).

10 Given the small size of these parishes, the local variations (due primarily to topography) can be surprising. St Elizabeth, for example, is in the 'upper-middle range' of parishes ranked by total annual rainfall, but as shall be seen below, some areas are far drier than the parishes listed with the lowest annual averages. 41 On the whole, the parishes of Portland, Hanover, St Thomas, and Westmoreland receive the most rainfall (over 2000 mm) and Clarendon and St Catherine receive the least (under 1500 mm) (Figure 2.3) on an annual average basis; however Figure 2.3 reveals that Portland's total exceeds that of the next wettest parish (Hanover) by nearly 60 percent. The three driest parishes of are all located along the south coast, while the wettest parishes of are found in the eastern and western extremes of the island (Figure 2.4).

Table 2.1. Mean Monthly Rainfall by Parish in mm, with Parish Totals and Island Average, 1951-1980 (Source: Jamaica Meterological Service 2002) Note: Cld=Clarendon, SC=St Catherine, K/S=Kingston/St Andrew, SA=St Ann, Trl=Trelawny, Mtr=Manchester, SJ=St James, SE=St Elizabeth, SM=St Mary, Wmd=Westmoreland, ST=St Thomas, Hnv=Hanover, Pld=Portland

J F M A M J J A S O N D Total Cld 54 39 58 83 181 149 87 119 180 257 104 67 1378 SC 53 50 57 91 171 139 108 138 174 238 121 88 1428 K/S 53 49 56 103 180 123 50 168 215 287 187 112 1538 SA 145 90 78 117 164 115 50 97 130 177 214 219 1596 Trl 99 76 69 115 181 130 96 154 166 222 167 131 1606 Mtr 60 52 85 134 237 175 102 169 213 291 118 70 1706 SJ 91 77 62 111 223 203 145 182 202 253 138 104 1791 SE 69 60 84 182 243 163 145 204 211 273 133 71 1838 SM 181 129 106 148 175 122 81 116 110 209 263 268 1908 Wmd 64 70 91 164 302 262 261 275 245 290 122 70 2216 ST 121 91 65 120 251 219 150 213 281 368 232 177 2288 Hnv 88 91 87 146 294 309 237 275 264 291 133 87 2302 Pld 321 236 185 273 321 278 231 245 273 373 477 457 3670 Avg 108 85 83 137 225 184 134 181 205 271 185 148 1946

42 These physical characteristics of geomorphology, soils, and climatic patterns along with location on the earth's surface combine to provide the context in which the historical-cultural characteristics of indigenous settlement, European colonization, and post-independence pattern of land utilization took place. In turn, these historical-cultural patterns and characteristics along with global power systems and discursive formations combined with these physical attributes to produce the Jamaican landscape that is the subject of the remainder of this dissertation.

4000

3500

3000

2500

2000

1500

1000

500

0 Cld SC K/S SA Trl Mtr SJ SE SM Wmd ST Hnv Pld

Figure 2.3. Jamaica Mean Annual Rainfall Averages in mm, 1951-1980. (Source: Jamaica Meteorological Service 2002) Note: Cld=Clarendon, SC=St Catherine, K/S=Kingston/St Andrew, SA=St Ann, Trl=Trelawny, Mtr=Manchester, SJ=St James, SE=St Elizabeth, SM=St Mary, Wmd=Westmoreland, ST=St Thomas, Hnv=Hanover, Pld=Portland

Figure 2.4. Jamaica Rainfall Distribution by Parish, 1951-1980. (Source: Jamaica Meteorological Service 2002b; basemap from d-maps.com) NOTE: Scale and copyright in lower left not readable; the 20 km scale is reproduced on the map, and the notice reads “© Daniel Dallet / d-maps.com” 44 2.2. Historical Setting and Cultural Characteristics

2.2.1. Indigenous peoples

Although the most contemporarily apparent human imprints on Jamaica and the wider

Caribbean date from the arrival of Europeans in the late fifteenth century, human settlements on the islands were well established long before then. For many earlier researchers on the region, however, the aboriginal presence was something to be acknowledged in passing before moving on to the 'real' history of the region beginning with the arrival of Europeans. West and Augelli

(1976) refer to the perhaps 6000-year long period of human habitation in the Caribbean prior to the arrival of Europeans merely as “The pre-Columbian, Amerindian Prologue” (58), and

Blume's (1974) chapter, “The Aborigines,” consists of less than two and a half pages of text and one table in a book of nearly 400 pages. The next chapter is entitled “History of Discovery,

Political, and Economic Development,” implying that these processes were absent among the indigenous people while ignoring the fact that pre-Columbian people had 'discovered' the islands thousands of years prior, and had developed their own various systems of organizing power and sustaining livelihoods.

At least in part this is because the aboriginal inhabitants were decimated and disappeared from the Caribbean stage very quickly after the catastrophic (for them) arrival of the Europeans, and thus it has been left to interested archaeologists to construct and produce information and knowledge about them from whatever history they left in art and artifacts – their only record, since they did not possess a written language and did not exist long enough for their oral traditions to be written by others. Often, this archaeology has entailed analysis of 'negative criteria' – that is, constructing knowldege from what researchers have not found (Knight 1989).

The (re-)construction of their lives by non-aboriginal academics is therefore far removed from

45 their own lived experiences. Other, and even more problematic, sources of information about the indigenous inhabitants of the region, of course, are the records, recollections, and observations of early Spanish explorers and settlers, whose views had passed through the prisms of their own religious and cosmological world outlooks (Schnakenberg et al. 2011).

Nonetheless, some discussion of the Precolumbian peoples of the Caribbean is relevant to this project, as the aboriginal peoples established some of the characteristics of the still partially extant agricultural complex of the region. In addition, the experiences of these people under

European colonization set the stage for the subsequent human and historical geography of the islands, at least in part due to the aboriginal people being framed through the imaginaries of the conquerors.

Although no firm date has been established for the arrival of the first humans on the islands of the Caribbean, Rouse's 1964 study identifies an epoch of Caribbean habitation as

'Paleoindian' that extends to approximately 15,000 BCE (502), while Watts (1987) identifies both

Early and Late Paleoindian groups on Hispaniola and Cuba, the former extending back to 5,000

BCE (47). Watts (1987) further identifies another period of indigenous culture and occupancy from 1000-300 BCE by groups he refers to as “Mesoindians,” remains of whose presence could be found across the Greater Antilles (50).

Three main human groups inhabited the Caribbean Basin region at the time of first

European contact, each arriving in migrations from the mainland in successive periods (Rouse

1951, 1964; West and Augelli 1976; Watts 1987; Knight 1989; Richardson 1992; Wilson 1997).

The earliest of these groups has commonly been identified by the name Ciboney as if it identified a specific ethnocultural group (Rouse 1951; West and Augelli 1976; Knight 1989) though both

Richardson (1992) and Watts (1987) indicated that the name was not a 'tribal' designation but

46 rather referred to people reduced to subservient or servile status under later migrants. These early inhabitants, characterized by Watts (1987) as a remnant Mesoindian people (50) were still

11 present in far western Cuba and Hispaniola at the time of Columbus’s arrival. Ciboney culture is generally characterized, perhaps paradoxically, as both the least developed and as having the least known about them in the archaeological record (Rouse 1964; West and Augelli 1976;

Knight 1989; Richardson 1992; Wilson 1997); Knight (1989) goes so far as to describe them as

“mere troglodytic bands with an unsophisticated artistic ability” (12). Sauer (1966), who gave their tribal name as “Guanahacabibe,” related that they lived “like savages…they [do not] have houses…but they live in caves” (48). No evidence of their having practiced agriculture has been described in the literature. West and Augelli (1976) use four sentences to describe them (59).

Knight (1987) appeared to be on target when he stated that the Ciboney present “a major historical enigma” (51).

Successive waves of two main groups of Neoindians had populated the Caribbean islands by the late fifteenth century CE. These were the Arawak and Carib, the latter group giving their name to the sea, and therefore the region. Both of these groups have been subject to misunderstanding, oversimplification, and misrepresentation by many researchers. For example,

Rouse (1951) employed a simple dualistic differentiation that became the common perception:

“The Arawak…were agricultural, pottery-making Indians and lived in permanent villages rather than camps…they were peaceable…By contrast, the Carib were cannibals and emphasized warfare” (249). However, the cannibalism widely attributed to Caribs was likely ritualistic rather than a dietary proclivity (West and Augelli 1976; Watts 1987), and later researchers interrogate

11 Despite the somewhat dubious and confusing nature of the term 'Ciboney' referred to in the previous sentence, it will continue to be employed here due to its widespread use in the literature to identify this particular group of people. 47 the assumption of such a simple dichotomous scheme. Reid (1992) claimed that no definitive archaeological proof had been found to substantiate the attribution of cannibalism among the

Carib (18), while Wilson (1997) asserted that the putative cannibalism of the Caribs allowed for their enslavement by Europeans, a point echoed by Williams (1984). Wilson further (1997) stated that this allowing of Carib enslavement led to the wider application of the term to other groups in order to allow them to be captured and put to labor (145). Over time, the term 'Carib' simply came to have an equivalent meaning for the Spanish as the term 'bad Indians' and the term

'Arawak' came to be an equivalent for 'peaceful Indians.' In addition, Wilson (1997, 147) cites

Rouse (1986), perhaps the archaeologist with the greatest depth of research and level of expertise on the topic (and whose positions evolved along with further research), as determining that, despite several centuries of divergent cultural development, the Arawak and Carib shared a common ancestry.

The Arawak were the earlier arrivals, and began migrating into the Caribbean from northern South America some time around 300 BCE (Rouse 1951, 1964; Watts 1987), and eventually spread across the entire region. Some researchers have employed terminology such as

Taino, Sub-taino, Lucayan, to describe various Arawak groups based on their perceived levels of technological and cultural advancement (West and Augelli 1976; Richardson 1992), while

Knight (1990) refers to the people as the 'Taino Arawak.' However, Watts (1987) claimed that

'Taino' was a term introduced in the twentieth century as referring to a single social class (53); some other critical researchers also question this system of classification, especially in light of the overall paucity of information about them that is not based on a high degree of speculation

(Reid 1992; Wilson 1997).

48 The Arawak diffused throughout the Caribbean, settling on most islands of any significant size, including the Greater Antilles, by around 250 CE (Watts 1987; Kimber 1992).

They had largely absorbed the Ciboney people, who remained only in a few isolated western extremities of Hispaniola and Cuba. By contrast, the settlement region of the people characterized as the Carib was more limited, primarily consisting of the Lesser Antilles (West and Augelli 1976; Watts 1987; Reid 1992), though they likely conducted raids on Arawak

12 settlements in the Greater Antilles. With livelihoods based largely on fishing and practicing more limited and/or haphazard agriculture than the Arawak (Watts 1987; Knight 1990; Kimber

1992), the Carib contribute less directly to the aboriginal legacies found in Jamaica than the

Arawak, but provide an early example of the Caribbean region as a place where the projected imaginaries of Europeans became actualized in material ways on the people living there. The designation of the Carib as 'cannibals' provided the pretext for their enslavement and eventual near-decimation, although they survived longer than the Arawak. This was at least in part due to their locations in the smaller islands of the Eastern Caribbean, away from main foci of Spanish

13 colonization and travel routes (Watts 1987; Knight 1990; Kimber 1992; Richardson 1992;

Wilson 1997).

Elements of Arawak agriculture continue to provision many households in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean. Sauer's (1966) description of the shifting cultivation system called the conuco included cassava (Manihot esculenta), sweet potato (Ipomoea batata), and maize (Zea

12 A great deal of the literature refers to Carib raids featuring the capture of women. This may explain the origin and persistence of the story of their cannibalism, since Columbus and others received their initial information about them from the Arawak. 13 Tiny remnant populations of (mixed) Carib remain in highland Dominica and St Vincent as late as the 1990s, and form one of the primary ethnocultural bases of the mainland Garifuna of Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras, according to these same authors. 49 mays), all of which continue to be cultivated by farmers in Jamaica. These plots sometimes utilized fertilized mounds for planting rather than fallowing and/or to facilitate drainage in wetter soils (Sauer 1966; Watts 1987; Barker and Spence 1988; Wilson 1997). Mimicking the species diversity and ‘multistory’ character of natural vegetation found in the Caribbean, these conucos were able to sustainably support the Arawak population admirably (in conjunction with fishing), despite the disparagement of the Spanish colonists and many later Euro-American analysts as

'primitive' and inefficient. (Sauer 1956; Watts 1987; Richardson 1992).

Agricultural legacy aside, very little remains of the millenia of pre-Columbian habitation of Jamaica, aside from some Arawak and Carib words diffused into mainstream English, such as barbeque, hurricane, canoe, hammock, potato, among others, and the name of the island/country itself. Higman and Hudson (2005) related that Columbus reported the Arawak name for the island as "Xaymaca," translating roughly as 'land of woods (or forest) and water (or springs)'

(Minority Rights Group International 2007); although this name became widely accepted rather

14 quickly, Arawak names for places on the island itself have largely disappeared (Higman and

Hudson 2005, 27). Padrón (2003) reported some indigenous village names (Maima, Aguacadiba, and Ameyro) persisting into the Spanish period, but no locations were offered for these.

Numerous Arawak villages and middens have been found at archaeological excavations in

Jamaica, including multiple ones in present-day south St Elizabeth Parish in the study area of this dissertation described below (Howard 1950), but as indicated above, current reconstruction of

Arawak life is sketchy, inconclusive, and problematic.

14 According to Bryan (1992), the suggestion to name the island "Santiago," after Spain's patron Saint James never caught on. 50 2.2.2. Colonization and creolization

Late in the fifteenth century, the European invasions/conquests commenced, and the aboriginal control of the islands quickly disappeared, along with most of the people. The power to give names to places is coupled with economic power and its concomitant domination of land and people (Higman and Hudson 2009). In the Caribbean, and Jamaica in particular, this power lay for over 160 years in the hands of the Spanish. Christopher Columbus reached Jamaica on his second voyage in 1494, possibly landing at or near the location of present-day Discovery Bay on the north coast; he also spent a year in Jamaica, from June 1502 to June 1503, as a result of problems with the ships on his last voyage (Bryan 1992). With most Spanish attention focused on Hispaniola, however, Jamaica was not populated by Spaniards until 1506, and even then they were few in number; lacking in gold, Jamaica's importance was eclipsed by the larger islands and later, colonies on the mainland, and became little more than a provisioning station for the wider

Spanish colonial enterprise (Bryan 1992; Sherlock and Bennett 1998; Padrón 2003, Higman

2001; Higman and Hudson 2005).

The Spanish established a number of small settlements around the island and created an administrative center at Nueva Sevilla on the north coast near present-day St Ann's Bay; this town only lasted for twenty years, however, and administration moved to the south coast and the newly constructed town of Santiago de la Vega for both health reasons (avoiding areas of swamps) and to have better access to the ships plying the routes to South American colonies

(Sherlock and Bennett 1998; Padrón 2003). The population under the Spanish remained quite small. A 1611 account by an Abbot on the island describes the total population as just over 1500 people, including 558 slaves, 173 children, and 107 ‘blacks’ (presumably free), along with 74

Indians (Padrón 2003, 303). Another report to the Spanish monarchs by a governor described the

51 presence of "buccaneers on the island, but [the islanders were unable] to remedy it; according to the abbot the adult Spanish population in 1611 numbered only 523." (Andrews 1978, 222). By the time of this report, of course, the indigenous people of the island were gone from a combination of disease, enslavement, deportation to labor in mines on Hispaniola and Cuba, and outright homicide/genocide (Andews 1978; Watts 1987; Richardson 1992; Tinker and Freeland

2008). Watts (1987) stated that by 1517, except for extremely rare isolates in the mountainous interior, Jamaica's Arawak had become extinct (107), while Bryant (1993) said in a statement of brutal simplicity, “by the end of the sixteenth century most of the Indian population had died”

(23). Andrews (1978) claimed that while “Jamaica proved to have no gold, [it] became an excellent provisioning centre, its native human population having been replaced by animals within a decade” (16).

Despite the short-lived and low-population period of Jamaica's history as a Spanish colony, three significant imprints were established. First, many contemporary place names are derived from Spanish ones. A sampling: Puerto de Antón became Port Antonio, Punte de

Morante became Morant Point, Bahia de Manteca became Montego Bay, Santa Lucea is now known just as Lucea (and pronounced ‘Lucy’), Los Angeles is now the community of Angels, a ranch in the south identified as Pereda is in the location of the current area of the Pedro Plains; the Rio Negrillo is now called the Little (or South) Negril River, the Rio Ayala is now known as the Yallahs River, while the Rio Bueno and Rio Minho Rivers and the Santa Cruz and Don

Figeuerero Mountains retain their Spanish names unchanged (Sherlock and Bennett 1998;

Padrón 2003). Second, and of greater importance in the context of this project, the large estate that came to characterize Jamaican agriculture to the present day first appeared as the Spanish colonized the south of the island (with more extensive areas of lower-relief topography) and the

52 15 scattered smallholdings “gave way to cattle farms, pens, and pasturelands” (Padrón 2003, 54).

Finally, as indicated in the brief census above, the labor needed to produce the provisions for

Spanish ships and other colonies and to work on the nascent sugar plantations coupled with the destruction of the native people and low numbers of Spanish colonists meant that Africans were first brought as slaves (Watts 1987; Williams 1984; Mintz 1986; Bryan 1992; Padrón 2003;

Tinker and Freeland 2008)

Due to its strategic position between the larger insular Spanish colonies on Hispaniola and Cuba and the mainland, Jamaica became an interest of the French, Dutch, and English

(Andrews 1978; Padrón 2003). Limiting the power of Spain, which was supported by the shipments of wealth from its New World colonies, also became an interest of the other European powers, resulting in the well-known era of the 'privateers' – pirates operating under the approval of European monarchs – raiding Spanish fleets and poorly-defended locations across the widely scattered territories of Spain's maritime empire, forcing the monarchy to prioritize maintainemce of control over certain colonial territories at the expense of others. A dizzying cavalcade of seizures, occupations, conquests, and cessions ensued in the 1600s, with 1) initial French and

Dutch acquisition of small Caribbean territories and 2) British occupation of the easternmost island of Barbados in 1627; from there they moved to take possession of Nevis, followed by

Monserrat, Antigua, and St Lucia by 1638 (Knight 1990).

In 1655, these circumstances led to an event that has continued to profoundly shape the cultural geography of Jamaica down to the present day. The 'Western Design' of Oliver Cromwell was launched in 1654 and was meant to deliver a blow to Spain and extend English political,

15 Interestingly, these smallholdings under the Spanish were known by the name of the Arawak agricultural system, conucos. 53 military, and economic interests by conquering and settling one of the primary Spanish island colonies like Cuba or Hispaniola to use as a base for settlement and trade (Williams 1984; Watts

1987; Knight 1990; Harrington 2004). The attempt to capture Hispaniola proved a rout, where a

9,000 strong landing force under the command of William Penn and Robert Venables was repelled by between 400-600 militia before even reaching Santo Domingo ; they then moved on to sparsely settled and poorly defended Jamaica, taking it in 1655 (Watts 1987; Sherlock and

Bennett 1998; Harrington 2004).

Although Watts (1987) reported that between half and two-thirds of the settlers

16 (primarily from Barbados ) died within a short time of arrival from a combination of disease, hunger, and ongoing guerrilla attacks from a few remaining Spaniards, former Spanish slaves, and Maroons, Jamaica nonetheless had become a territory of England and an early center of an soon-to-be emergent British Empire (Harrington 2004). This was accomplished through the defection of the Maroons to the English side in 1659 after friction developed between them and the Spanish resistance leader (Watts 1987; Harrington 2004). English possession of Jamaica was formally recognized by Spain in the 1670 Treaty of Madrid (Knight 1990). Jamaica remained an

English – and after the Act of Union in 1707, a British – colony until independence on August 1,

1962, a total of 307 years.

With the English occupation of Jamaica came another transition: that from a settler colony like those of British North America to an exploitation colony populated by a small

16 Many if not most of these settlers were 'vagabonds,' petty criminals, political prisoners, or Scots and Irish from England's troubled peripheries who had been transported to the Caribbean. Williams (1984) referred to Cromwell's development of a "policy to 'barbadoes' his opponents" (101) and reported the selling of seven to eight thousand Scots captured in battle to New World plantations, and the rounding up of two thousand Irish adolescents for transportation, both confirmed by Watts (1987). Mintz (1985) pointed to the emergence of the term 'barbadoes' as a euphemism for 'kidnapping.' 54 number from the metropole who supervised the vast labor needed to support the production of commodities for export, most notably sugar (Williams 1984; Mintz 1985; Knight 1990), which requires large amounts of land under cultivation and correspondingly large inputs of labor for growing, harvesting, and processing it in order to be profitable. The early attempt of populating

Caribbean colonies with indentured or 'barbadoesed' white laborers from Europe (see above) was abandoned in favor of increased reliance on slaves kidnapped from Africa. This practice had begun under the Spanish but rapidly gained momentum as sugar gained prominence as the source of riches that Columbus first sought when sailing for ‘the Indies.’

Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) domesticated in New Guinea, perhaps as long ago as 8000 BCE, and was carried to Philippines and Indonesia two thousand years later (Mintz

1985, 19; Mann 2011). The making of sugar from the juice of sugarcane, however, is much more recent, with references only appearing in the Common Era. The cultivation and processing of sugar diffused westward to Persia, the Middle East, and eastern Mediterranean; Mintz (1985) stated that it was known in Byzantium as an “Indian luxury” (23). Arab expansion in the seventh and eighth centuries spread the practice westward to Malta, Sicily, the Mahgreb, and al-Andalus in southern Spain, as “sugar followed the Koran” (Mintz 1985, 25).

Sugar came to the Americas on Columbus's second voyage in 1493, after picking it up at a stop in the Spanish-held Canary Islands (Williams 1984, Mintz 1985, Padrón 2003, Mann

2011). It reached these Atlantic islands, along with Portuguese-controlled Madeira and São Tome and Principe in the Gulf of Guinea, as the result of a process that included both the Crusaders’ takeover of some sugar operations in the eastern and insular Mediterranean, the Iberian

Reconquista, and the emergence of Venice as a center for the brokering and re-exporting of sugar

(Mintz 1985; Mann 2011). Slavery in some form or another had been part of sugar cultivation for

55 some time, with Mintz (1985) referring to its existence in North Africa and Mesopotamia prior to

1000 CE; however, it was often combined with free labor, and Mann (2011) asserts that it was in these Atlantic islands – specifially Madeira – that the institutions of the sugar plantation and

African slavery were brought together for the first time (294). Columbus wrote enthusiastically to the Spanish monarchs regarding the possibilities sugar held for Santo Domingo, where it was first introduced in the Americas and worked by African slaves who shortly followed its arrival

(Williams 1984; Mintz 1985; Watts 1987; Mann 2011). Mintz (1985) goes as far as to say, “it was Spain that pioneered sugar cane, sugar making, African slave labor, and the plantation form in the Americas” (32).

The original colonial unit of production was the small farm (sometimes; it was replaced by the now well-known institution of the sugar plantation system that was pioneered by the

Dutch in northeastern Brazil in the early 1600s and diffused northward to Barbados and through the rest of the colonized Caribbean by the middle of the century (Williams 1984; Hoetink 1985).

This plantation system, especially as it was applied to sugar, had a transformative effect not only on the Caribbean, but on the wider world. While many of the small farms found in early

Caribbean colonization owned slaves, these were often few in number. The transition to sugar- based agroeconomies changed both size of farms and quanitites of slaves involved in agricultural labor.

As an early sugar-based extractive colony, Barbados provides an instructive example of this process. In the mid-1600s, the average holding was less than ten acres, and the male population consisted of 5700 slaves compared to 18,300 white men, while by 1667 as a vanguard of the plantation system, the average holding was 300 acres and the slave population was over

18,000 and the ratio of arable acreage to slaves over the same period went from 17:1 to 5:4

56 (Williams 1984). The same process applied to Jamaica. Within a dozen years after the English takeover, Jamaica had over seventy sugar works on the island, and the increased ratios of slaves to whites from the seventeenth to the eighteenth centuries demonstrate the increased reliance on black labor: in 1698 there was one white for every six blacks, while in 1778 the ratio was one to eleven (Williams 1984, 104).

As indicated by changing these slave/white ratios, the advent of sugar as the defining economic activity for Caribbean territories like Jamaica, which as shown above cannot be decoupled from political activity, was also the determining factor in creating the human population makeup and its attendant ethnosocial structures. Williams (1984) stated that Jamaica's sugar economy, having become suited more or less exclusively to large capitalist production, completed the “ethnological transformation” (104) through the increased reliance on black labor:

“Where sugar was king, the white man survived only as owner or overseer” (Williams 1984,

110). Thus the sugar economy is responsible for establishing the class/caste divisions in existence within Jamaica and the wider Caribbean to the present.

The ethnosocial/color/caste character of Jamaica descends directly from the positions of power first established by the sugar plantations: power and status are inextricably linked to gradations of skin color. The following description is true not only for Jamaica, but for most of the Caribbean, including the Guianas; local historical cirumstances might result in slight differences such as increased numbers of South Asians in Trinidad and Guyana, but overall patterns will likely be similar. Following Stone (1987), Edie (1991) described a four-tiered structure. At the top are the 'upper-class capitalists,' constituting the smallest group, made up of whites, Syrians and Lebanese, Chinese, (South Asian) Indians (the Chinese and Indians came as indentured laborers after emancipation), Jews, and a small scattering of light-skinned mixed-race

57 17 ‘browns.’ Next are the upper middle classes, primarily brown professionals along with some blacks. After labor riots shook the Caribbean in 1938, the expansion of government bureaucracy in Jamaica presented greater opportunities for blacks to join this group. The lower middle classes consist of primary and secondary school teachers, civil servants, white collar workers, small business operators, and some owners of medium to large farms; they are predominantly black.

The lower classes are made up completely of blacks, and include smallholders, rural farm laborers and the urban labor force, petty traders/higglers, and the unemployed, representing as a whole the most marginalized group in Jamaican society.

Use of the term ‘society’ effectively refers to the contemporary suite of peoples, institutions, and interactions. Patterson (1973) pointed out that for the first near-century of

English/British rule in Jamaica, there was no true 'society' in the sense of a “territorially-based, self-sufficient collective” (249) with some degree of a coherent shared value and belief system: it was populated in the main by two groups, the transients and the immigrants. The transients were either those seeking to make their fortunes in one way or another and return home, or were appointed administrators or soldiers who would leave when their assignment ended. For the white plantocracy, the move to Jamaica had none of the overtones of a break with the past and visions of creating a ‘shining city on a hill;’ their move to the Western Hemisphere was undertaken with the shortest possible time horizon and was primarily motivated by greed

17 Stone (1987) and Edie (1991), who are the sources for the descriptions in this paragraph, also stated that this class is too small numerically to exert any direct influence in Jamaica's politics; rather, they form alliances to advance their own interests with the upper middle classes who exert the greatest influence in party politics in order to get policies in place that are to their advantage. As a result, some members of this class are allied with each of Jamaica's two main parties, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the People's National Party (PNP). Besson (2007) cites Henriques' (1968) color/caste hierarchy of Jamaican society, but also critiques him for not fully investigating capitalist class relations in his analysis. 58 (Patterson 1973, 250). The immigrants were enslaved Africans from a number of different ethnocultural groups who desired nothing more than to escape from the horrifically brutal experience of slavery. Neither group was therefore deeply involved in the building of local social institutions (Patterson 1973).

The experience of 'the plantation' as an institution during colonial times created legacies that persist long after the colonial period came to an end. One such legacy is the often complex cultural heterogeneity evident in postcolonial states where the plantation played a significant historical role. The basic population characteristic of plantation societies all over the world is the presence of multicultural groups that reflect both the era of slavery and the transport of people from other parts of the world when Emancipation stimulated new waves of immigration, or imported labor in areas where the plantations' local genesis postdates the era of slavery

(Beckford 1999). As mentioned above, this ethnic/racial/cultural complexity can be closely linked to different strata of class status.

The practices involved in the Caribbean, and specifically Jamaican, sugar-based system of slavery created elements of the contemporary ethnoracial/social/political makeup to the island other than the ‘former slave/former master’ binary. A group requiring particular attention is known throughout the Western Hemisphere by several different appellations: palenqueros (‘those who lived within palenques,’ or stockades) or mambises in the Hispanic Caribbean, quilombos or mocambos in Brazil, marrons for the French, and to the English/British colonists, maroons: a

“runaway peasantry” (Mintz 1989; Besson 2007) of “rebel slaves who established virtually autonomous communities in almost inaccessible terrain” (Besson 2007, 7). Mann (2011) asserts that these communities numbered in the thousands across the Americas, some covering vast areas while others were highly localized, some only existed for a year or so while others fought

59 colonial governments for decades, but all shared a goal of creating ‘spaces of freedom’ for their members.

The name 'maroon' is derived from the Spanish cimarrón, referring to domesticated cattle or pigs that had ‘gone wild’ into the hills (Price 1973; Kopytoff 1976; Hinnels 1995), but a deeper etymology exists. Mann (2011) stated that the widely used English term originally comes, rather poetically, from símaran, the Taino (Arawak) word for the flight of an arrow (331). This is supported by Vaughn (2012) who cites Quintero-Rivera's (1998) discussion of the term having evolved from meaning ‘stray/runaway arrow,’ to cattle or other animals that went ‘wild’ into the hills, to humans – first Native Americans and then blacks – who did the same.

Although the practice is a very obvious rejection of ‘slave’ status, represents a powerful form of resistance, and led to the emergence of numerous highly capable (and valorized) leaders, marronage is a complex phenomenon. Price (1973) cautioned against placing anyone neatly in a particular spot along some linear 'accommodation-resistance' continuum. Resistance takes many forms and at times requires a measure of accommodation: “[t]he house slave who poisoned her master's family...had to first become the family cook...And the slaves who plotted armed revolt in the marketplaces had to first produce for the market and to gain permission to carry their produce

18 there” (Mintz 1971, 321; cited in Price 1973). In Jamaica as elsewhere, Maroons burned fields and plantations, freed slaves, and waged a successful campaign against the colonial power from

1665 to 1740, with the British finally suing for peace in 1739; they signed a treaty with the

Maroon leader Cudjoe/Kojo near Accompong Town, which granted them an autonomous 1500- acre polity in the area and remainded in effect until independence in 1962. The Leeward

(western) Maroon community of Accompong Town is still presided over by a 'colonel' who

18 Capitalization of the term here and afterwards refers specifically to the Jamaican groups. 60 serves three to five year elected terms and an appointed council, and retains many African customary land use and agricultural practices. Though she died prior to the 1740 Treaty, the

Windward (eastern) Maroon leader known as Nanny (Nanny Town is in Portland Parish) is the only woman among the seven people with the status of ‘National Heroes’ (the others are Marcus

Garvey, Alexander Bustamante, Norman Manley, Paul Bogle, George William Gordon, and Sam

Sharpe).

Despite 1) the inclusion of Nanny among Jamaica's National Heroes, 2) Cudjoe's status as a capable commander and forceful leader who forged a notion of ‘kindah’ (‘one family’) among a varied ethnolinguistic ‘mosaic culture’ (Price 1973) of people from different African nations, and 3) the importance to Jamaican identity of their defeat of the British, there remains an ambivalence in Jamaica regarding the Maroons' legacy for the Jamaican ‘psyche’ (if it is possible to talk about such a thing). On the one hand, the Maroons represent a source of pride for the resilience, prowess, courage, tenacity, intelligence, and audacity of a band of Africans defeating the powerful British military. On the other, in accordance with the 1740 treaty, they agreed to return any further runaway slaves to the authorities, and in fact, acted as bounty hunters for fugitive slaves. Thus, once their freedom was established and recognized, remaining slaves in

Jamaica had no place left to flee; unlike Brazil, the Guianas, or southern North America, space simply did not exist in Jamaica for establishing new communities or joining other existing ones.

According to a Jamaican friend, after the Treaty, the sound of the abeng (the cow horn blown by the Maroons as a war signal, similar to the ‘rebel yell’) was as chilling and fearsome to runaway slaves as the sound of colonial militias and dogs in pursuit. The Maroons' presence in Jamaica is therefore both an important marker of the African-based identity of most Jamaicans, as well as a reminder of the highly attenuated solidarity among those subjected to slavery.

61 The Maroons contributed indirectly to the ethnic mix that makes up Jamaica as well. At the height of the First Maroon War in the 1730s, Miskito Indians from the Caribbean coast of present-day Honduras and Nicaragua were brought to Jamaica to assist the British authorities as trackers and hunters of the Maroons, and some of these were given land grants in return (Knibb

1978; Helms 1986; Campbell 1990; Weik 1997; Armstrong and Hauser 2004). A number of these grants were in the vicinity of Black River in St Elizabeth Parish (Jamaicamix 2012).

Aside from the (primarily) English plantation/estate owners, other European immigrants came to Jamaica as a result of the plantation system. Owing to a lack of economic opportunity and/or social mobility, significant numbers of Scots emigrated to Jamaica between 1750 and

1800; their aim was to make money and then return, but many stayed as bookkeepers, accountants, overseers, attorneys, and merchants (Besson 2002). This group contributes conspicuously to the human mix in the St Elizabeth study area, and will be revisited below. As

Emancipation approached in the 1830s, the Jamaica Assembly provided an act for the importation of German indentured laborers, thinking they would provide an effective source of competition for the soon-to-be-emancipated slaves (in order to keep control of their labor) as well as a workforce; this scheme proved to be a failure but led to the establishment of several

German communities and, as intermarriage ensued, added another piece of the ethnocultural mosaic that is contemporary Jamaica (Tortello 2004). Indentured laborers from South Asia and

China, noted above, proved a more successful labor force for the cane fields.

Foundational works by Williams (1984), Mintz (1985), and Beckford (1999) have discussed the broader impacts of the sugar transformation in detail. Williams (1984) explained the historical-political development of the sugar plantation within the contexts of both the

62 Caribbean and the European metropoles, and provided a focus on the role of slavery in shaping both later capitalist development and the subsequent history of the Caribbean.

Mintz (1985) analyzed ways in which the arrival of cheap sugar (comparitively, when measured against pre-1600 prices for this ‘luxury’) to Europe transformed not only the

Caribbean, but shaped ideas about food, meals, society, the family, and work in the European metropoles, especially England. He stated that the sugar plantation represented a ‘pre-capitalist’ form of industrial organization, a century or more before the oft-cited 'starts' of the Industrial

Revolution and the “real capitalism” (Mintz 1985, 58), even with enslaved African rather than

'free' European labor that was made available through the enclosure processes and the erosion of

19 the feudal social and economic systems. Following Hobsbawm (1968), Mintz (1985) further linked increased consumption of sugar and the trade connections it engendered in the seventeenth century as responsible for "wreck[ing] the earlier Mediterranean and Baltic trade systems" and the emergence of a North Atlantic trade system – the 'New World Order' of its day

(66). British per capita consumption of sugar increased 400 percent over the course of the eighteenth century (Mintz 1985, 67), creating a 'feedback loop' among the Caribbean plantations, sugar importers and merchants, and the sugar-consuming public. Mann (2011) asserts in his analysis of the emergence of the plantation system that “Europe, then as now, had a sweet tooth; sugar was as popular as it was hard to come by” (107) as if this was the outcome of some natural and linear evolutionary commercial process; however, as Mintz (1985) makes clear, this outcome resulted from conscious and directed manufacturing of desire and taste.

19 Mintz (1985) cites Williams (1942) as referring to the blend of slavery and the growing market for plantation commodities that emerged in the colonial period as "a system combining the sins of feudalism with those of capitalism, without the virtues of either" (13). 63 This crucial contribution of Mintz (1985) had to do with this shaping of 'desires' by invested economic and political interests that intertwined at various loci of policymaking, production and consumption:

[Cheap sugar's] increased consumption was guaranteed not by the sugar habit itself, but by the factory world and machine rhythms that were the background for its use. It was not just that labor worked harder in order to get more; those who paid its wages profited both from labor's higher productivity and from its heightened use of store-purchased commodities (Mintz 1985, 167).

Mintz's (1985) analysis addressed the ways that meaning was assigned to certain acts of consumption, making it part of identity-shaping. Sugar meant something once it was introduced as a widely available product instead of a prohibitively expensive luxury and marker of elite status; this is an easy fact to lose sight of in our hyper-consumerist twenty-first century. Colonial commodities like “[t]obacco, sugar, and tea were the first objects within capitalism that conveyed with their use the complex idea that one could become different by consuming differently”

(Mintz 1985, 185; emphasis in original), a circumstance that fed both the sales/marketing of and consumer demand for sugar. The associations of meaning with patterns of consumption exemplify the operation of discursive practices, while a Foucaultian interpretation of Mintz's

(1985) analysis linking ‘becoming’ through ‘consuming’ would describe this complex process as the production of new subjectivities. The effects of these emerged both in the shops and kitchens of England's industrial cities and in the landscapes of the sugar-producing areas of the world, including Jamaica.

As discussed above, the plantation experience played a role in shaping both social and economic dynamics in Britain and Europe and the ethnocultural heterogeneity so evident in

Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean. The influence of the plantation experience reaches even further, however. The institution of the plantation in the formerly colonized world has profoundly

64 shaped, and continues to profoundly shape, the construction of meaning in post-plantation societies regarding what is desireable/undesireable, valued/not valued, modern/backward. Thus, the plantation institution is further identified in the imbricated operations of discursivity, power, and subjectivity, which is the topic of the remainder of this section.

The governments of newly-independent former plantation colonies have frequently not met the goals and objectives of 'true independence.' This is in part due to the characteristics of the contemporary globalized economy, aspects of which will be further developed below.

However, according to Beckford (1999), it is also due to the economic (and concomitant political) influence of the plantations even after independence, as well as the “incapacity of the national leaders, the leaders' incapacity being directly related to the psychological legacy of the plantation on the minds of the colonized peoples” (41). While one must be cautious in considering assertions regarding a singular, monolithic, and essentialist manner of thinking of a group of rather varied people, this point deserves some further discussion.

The main principle of Beckford's (1999) analysis is that the experience of the plantation economy leads to the creation of a plantation society; the plantation experience affects how people in the society perceive themselves and the socio-political-economic world they inhabit.

Beckford (1999) cites Smith's (1967) development of a post-independence ‘evolutionary model,’ in which a hybrid but locally-rooted ‘creole’ society succeeds the ‘plantation’ society, but claims that the difference described by Smith (1967) was primarily one of degree and not of structure:

The basic facts about creole society are that it was rooted in the political and economic dominance of the metropolitan power, it was colour stratified and was integrated around the moral and cultural superiority of things English...the value standards of the whole society were English or ‘white people's’ (Smith 1967, 234).

65 According to Beckford (1999), since the plantations were 1) owned by the English and 2)

“provided the integrating mechanism during the slave period, it follows that creole society is fundamentally the same as plantation society” (41) regarding the intertwined economic, political, and social formations of power. The social role of the plantation both perpetuated its existence as an institution as well as expanded “its hegemony over the economy these social forces dominate”

(Beckford 1999, 44). This analysis was similar to that of Henriques (1968), who described the

Jamaican social system as a hierarchy based on co-dependent variables of color gradations and economics, bound by Eurocentric values resulting from the impacts of slave society (10).

This social/economic nexus is self-reinforcing. In the period after Emancipation, many educational opportunities for blacks were greatly increased, and a number of the 'best and brightest' among the descendants of former slaves were afforded the opportunity to gain meaningful education at the secondary and tertiary (and later, graduate) levels, both in the

Caribbean and in the metropole. Many of these highly educated blacks were the ideal candidates for government positions in the pre-independence ‘self-governing’ periods common to several

Caribbean states and in the immediate post-independence period. However, this advanced education available to some of the future political and economic leadership did little to alter the social/political/economic structures the plantations created.

Frequently the purpose of the institutions of Western-based formal education is to reproduce the dominant culture and the systems and structures that maintain it (Bourdieu and

Passeron 1990), and since the education system itself as well as its attendant curricula were metropolitan creations, those who passed through that system “further assimilated the metropolitan culture and became essentially black Europeans” (Beckford 1999, 39). In this reading, government leaders of newly-independent plantation colonies 1) continued policies

66 preferential to the plantation sector, since they were material embodiments of the 'superior culture,' and 2) underrated and underestimated the abilities of the non-European/non

Europeanized segment of their populations as unrefined or backward. According to Beckford

(1999), these government leaders conceptualized a hierarchized dualism: a ‘two-sector’ model of

20 development. One was the ‘modern,’ holding the dynamic potential for development, while the other was the 'traditional,' which was stagnant; the problem to be solved in developing therefore was to develop ways to shift resources from the latter to the former.

In residence, manners, dress, language, preferences, values, attitudes, and the like, the white planter class set the standard, and served to distinguish those blacks who had ‘made it’ and

'joined the club' from the rest (Beckford 1999; Cassidy 2007). Smith (1966) described the case in

Guyana as reflecting the Caribbean-wide post World War II process of ‘modernizing’ through increased consumption, which relied on another country (primarily, the United States for the

Caribbean region) for those consumer goods. This orientation toward and dependence upon an external party “becomes more than just a technical economic dependence; it becomes a cultural dependence” (Smith 1966, 257); moreover, this path to modernization favored the entrenched

Creole elites, particularly the merchant class that benefited immeasurably from tariff-free imports and the associations of increased consumption with increased levels of modernity. These preferences and status markers extended as well to food, and by extension, agriculture.

20 I have resisted the temptation to continually qualify my use of the term 'development' here. Though it is widely used, this use is problematic in that it creates a group of people that are 'under-developed' or 'in need of development' based on a particular set of criteria viewed only through a specific economic paradigm. See Esteva (1992). 67 2.2.3. Contemporary Jamaica

Jamaica received political independence from Britain in 1962, but the impacts of the colonial past remained important legacies in its social, political, and economic realms. As described above, gradations of color/caste resulting from Jamaica's experience as a sugar colony based on chattel slavery formed much of the basis for the country's system of social stratification. These social strata were inseparable from the volume and clarity available for political voices. Even prior to independence, close ties between politics and labor groups led to the origins of the two main political parties in Jamaica today. The People's National Party (PNP) was formed by attorney Norman Washington Manley in 1938 and its worker-based support group, the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU), was headed by businessman (and

Manley's cousin) Alexander Bustamante; when the PNP took a more Fabian Socialist stance in the early 1940s, Bustamante split and formed the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) (Edie 1991; Payne

1995). This act set in motion events that had four main outcomes: 1) it forced the PNP to organize its own trade unions to provide a loyal worker base, 2) set up the two-party system that has characterized Jamaican politics ever since, 3) established a political culture based on a 'hero- crowd' relationship of personal identification with party leaders, and 4) created the situation whereby the parties 'bought' the loyalties of unions and other groups of supporters with immediate short term benefits (Edie 1991, Beckford 1999). The end result became an entrenched system of political clientelism, which emerged in “conditions of scarcity and impoverishment and became one of the means of providing resources to party supporters at critical times in their lives” (Edie 1991, 9).

Again referring to Edie's (1991) following of Stone (1987), the highest 'capitalist' class dominated by whites, Syrians/Lebanese, (East) Indians, Chinese, and some 'browns' was too

68 small to have direct control over politics, and accordingly forged alliances with whichever political party advanced their own interests to the greatest degree. The 'upper middle class' of professionals, both browns and educated blacks, exercised the most power in party politics, while the generally black lower middle class was the most highly organized mass of people most active in party politics. The material needs of the poor black lower class provided the basis for clientelist relations, as benefits could be bestowed by one party or the other to ensure their votes at election time. The persistence of this clientelism affects the perceptions of many farmers regarding government actions down to the present day. In addition, the large numbers of urban poor, especially in Kingston, in such a political context has led to the creation of ‘can't-lose’ parliamentary districts with ‘muscle’ provided by criminal gangs that have become known as

‘garrison communities.’ Urban space that 'belongs' to one party or the other is clearly marked by graffiti and flags bearing party colors: orange for the PNP and green for the JLP (Figure 2.5-2.6).

In Stephanie Black's documentary Life and Debt (2003), former Prime Minister Michael Manley

(son of the PNP founder) related the familiar story of dependency in a small newly-independent country trying to 'make its way in the world' and the subsequent impacts of the oil shocks of the

1970s on an island country that relied entirely on imported petroleum. Other contributing factors existed, but this is one of the keys to the origin of Jamaica's continuing debt crisis and the austerity measures and Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPs) instituted in the1980s by multilateral lending and development agencies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF)

(Payne 1995; Weis 2006a, 2007).

Most economic indicators have not improved, nor have the economic circumstances of most Jamaicans since the onset of the SAPs. In 1969, Jamaica's total ratio of debt to GDP stood at 27.3 percent (Jamaica National Planning Agency 1973). In 2011, it was 115 percent of

Figure 2.5. Flags on utility poles marking JLP (green) and PNP (orange) 'turf,' Spanish Town and Kingston, respectively. June 2012. Photo by the author.

Figure 2.6. Wall graffiti marking PNP-supporting area, Kingston. June 2012. Photo by the author.

GDP, which was the fourth consecutive year it had been at least that high; in 2009 it had reached

123 percent, and it averaged 113 percent for the entire decade of 1999-2009 (Planning Institute of Jamaica 2010; Jackson 2011). According to University of the West Indies economist Michael

Witter (2009), 60 percent of all government expenditures went to debt service between 2001 and

2009. For the ten year period from January 2002 through January 2012, inflation averaged 11.15 70 percent annually with a peak of 26.49 percent in August 2008 and a low of 5.20 percent in

November 2006 (Trading Economics 2012).

As economic conditions deteriorated, the ability of politicians to provide 'the goods' for clientelist support deteriorated as well, and the earlier relationships between politicians and criminal ‘dons’ has been reversed: whereas formerly, the 'dons' gained some legitimacy from association with politicians, now the 'dons,' who gain make huge sums from illegal activities such as drugs, are the benefactors of the urban poor and it is they who extract favors – political and economic – from the politicians in return for delivering the votes (Keith and Keith 1992;

Payne 1995; Sives 2002; Johnson 2005).

2.2.4. Conclusion to Part I

This section has shown how the cultural context of Jamaica within the Caribbean region is one that, since the Columbian Exchange, has been shaped by the interactions between exogenous forces and local elements that are often dominated by the former. Rather than a simple oppositional Euro/Caribbean binary, however, the result has been the production of a

Creolized culture that reflects local people engaging with, appropriating, transforming, and adapting European institutions; this Creolization had both cognitive and material aspects and often reinforced the color/caste hierarchies present from slavery (Delle 2000; Besson 2002).

This section has ‘historicized’ the contemporary cultural context of Jamaica, based primarily on the experiences associated with colonization that have continued to affect agricultural patterns in Jamaica to the present. First, an overview of the pre-Columbian indigenous people was provided. Though little currently remains of their long dwelling in

Jamaica and the other islands of the Caribbean, they have left two important legacies

71 contributing to understanding in this project. First, they established agricultural patterns of food production in Jamaica, including both particular food crops and cultivation patterns (conuncos), elements of which persist to the present day. Second, they were the initial targets of the projection of European imaginaries regarding modernity, seen as they were as ‘cannibals,’ primitives, and savages who were inferior due to their closeness to nature. Second, the brief period of Spanish colonization was outlined. Although short, the Spanish colonial period had several long-lasting effects. The first was the extermination of the indigenous people and their knowledges and understandings that were rooted in familiarity with the biome. Aside from some remnant Spanish place names, the Spanish colonial adventures on the mainland and other larger islands led to Jamaica's orientation as a provisioning station, which resulted in low levels of population and infrastructure creation as well as the first establishment of the ‘large estate’ pattern of landholding. In turn, these conditions set the stage for the English takeover.

The English period of colonization put in place many of the characteristics and conditions with which Jamaicans contend today. English colonization made Jamaica into a sugar-based exploitation colony dominated by large plantations, chattel slavery, and a small white elite who had little to no attachment to the island or concern about institution-building, other than those institutions that maintained or increased the harvesting of cane. It also directly created the ethnosocial class lines still evident in the country, which in turn helped shape the post-independence character of intra-island political power operations. Additionally, Jamaica's tenure as an English

(and then British) sugar colony influenced, both directly and indirectly, patterns of contemporary food production.

Long after the demise of the slave-based plantation system, important legacies remain.

These legacies affect many aspects of life in Jamaica based on the uneasy relationship between

72 the past of slavery, resistance, accommodation, imitation, and the 'modern' present. From modes of dress and speech, and culinary preferences to attitudes toward science, technology, and economic competition, the desire to reach a more modern future continues to beckon many

Jamaicans even as they embrace the struggles of their past.

Part II: The Study Area

2.3. The Study Area

2.3.1. Overview

This dissertation features a case study focusing on a region located in southern St

Elizabeth parish (Figure 2.7) on the south coast of the island. This area is defined roughly on the

21 east and northeast by the Santa Cruz Mountains, to the northwest by the Black River Morass, to the south by the Caribbean Sea and the string of bays and associated communities that make up the Treasure Beach area (from west to east: Billy's Bay, Frenchman's Bay, Calabash Bay, and

Great Bay), and to the west by the Black River. It is identified by many Jamaicans throughout the island as the country’s ‘breadbasket’ because of the quantity of vegetables produced, primarily in the Pedro Plains, Round Hill, Hounslow, and Newell communities and sub-regions, and accordingly, is dotted with numerous small farms. It is located roughly 145 km west of Kingston and roughly 70 km south-southeast of Montego Bay (Figure 2.1). No large towns are found in the area. The Parish Council and courts can be found in the parish ‘capital’ of Black River, a

21 This is a large mangrove/swamp area created by the combination of low topography and the meandering waters of the Black River and tributaries, and is divided into “Lower” and “Upper” sub-areas. It is also called “The Great Morass” on some maps; confusingly, there is another area with this same name in the parish of Westmoreland, just inland from Long Bay at the mass-tourist mecca of Negril. 73 town of approximately 4230 people (World Gazetteer 2012), 20 km to the northwest. The largest town in St Elizabeth is Santa Cruz, with approximately 8200 people (World Gazetteer 2012) and

Figure 2.7. St Elizabeth Parish, with study area shaded (Source: National Geographic World Map database, ESRI 2011). 74

lying 18 km to the north of the study area, across the spur of the Santa Cruz Mountains and on the southern side of the Upper Black River Morass. Together, Black River and Santa Cruz account for 12,450 of St Elizabeth's urban population of around 22,600, out of a total parish population of roughly 152,000 (Statistical Institute of Jamaica 2012a).

2.3.1 Study Area Physical Characteristics

Most of St Elizabeth lies at elevations below 500 m with only exceptions being 1) in the far north near the border with Trelawny, where an interrupted band of igneous formations extends across the middle of the island eastward towards the Blue Mountains, 2) along the St

Elizabeth-Manchester border, where several peaks of the north-to-south Don Figuerero

Mountains reach 900 m (3000 feet), and 3) the Santa Cruz Mountains, which extend from the southeast coast northwestward to the center of the parish (National Atlas of Jamaica 1971). The

Santa Cruz Mountains represent an uplifted and dissected plateau rather than folded mountains, but in some cases the edge of the plateau is steep: elevations reach over 760 m (2500 feet) within

5.3 km of the coast; however most of the study area lies within elevations of 15 m and 300 m, or

50-1000 feet (Directorate of Overseas Surveys 1950; Batjes, Bouman, and Sinclair 1986;

Higman 2001).

As Table 2.1 and Figure 2.2 indicate, St Elizabeth falls in the middle range of parishes ranked by average annual rainfall, with an annual mean (1951-1980) of 1838 mm

(Meteorological Service of Jamaica 2002b). However, wide disparities in precipitation exist within the parish, in large part due to the rain shadow created by the Santa Cruz Mountains.

75 Thirty year averages for the three rainfall stations in or near the survey area (Pedro Plains,

Hounslow, and Williamsfield) show annual mean totals of 919 mm, 1113 mm, and 1091 mm, respectively; the average of these three stations (1041 mm) is 337 mm lower than the average for the country's driest parish, Clarendon (Ministry of Agriculture 1989; Meteorological

Service of Jamaica 2002b). By contrast, rainfall stations in northern areas of the parish regularly receive over 2000 mm of rainfall (Gamble et al. 2010). Study-area stations also follow the bimodal precipitation maxima described above for the island as a whole (Figure 2.4). Rainfall variability for Jamaica as a whole is rather low, and the study area could be classified as

'moderate' within this narrow range. The coefficient of annual variation (CAV) for the study area is around 24%; for Jamaica as a whole, the lowest CAV of 16% is found on the western end, while the highest tends to be in the east, with 32% at the eastern tip (northeast St Thomas) and

36% in southern St Catherine (Nkemdirim 1979).

Reliable air temperature readings are not available for the study area. However, data from one station approximately 20 km to the west at Crawford reflect the typical patterns of the temperature regime described above, with a high Mean Daily Maximum (MDH) of 32.9 degrees

22 Celsius in July and a low MDH of 30.4 degrees Celsius in December. Mean Daily Minimum temperatures range from 18.6 degrees Celsius in February to 22.0 degrees Celsius in June. The

Mean Daily Mean temperatures exhibit a narrow range of only 2 degrees Celsius over the course of the year (Ministry of Agriculture 1989).

St Elizabeth has only limited surface hydrological features. The only permanent river is the Black River along with its Smith and YS tributaries and 'creeks' and channels that make up

22 All of the temperature data in this paragraph come from the Jamaica Ministry of Agriculture (1989), cited at the end. 76

Figure 2.8. Mean Monthly Rainfall inmm for Selected South St Elizabeth Stations, With Comparisons to Aggregate Means for St Elizabeth and Jamaica. (Source: Ministry of Agriculture 1989; Meteorological Service Jamaica 2002b).

the Morass, while some short seasonal rivers can be found in the Santa Cruz Mountains and at the coast (National Atlas of Jamaica 1971). In the study area, the permeable limestone subsurface channels water to laterally draining caverns and sinkholes (Ministry of

Agriculture1989); personal observation has revealed several small water-filled holes in the limestone hills and historic maps reveal several wells and springs. In the coastal plain of the Treasure Beach-Great Bay area, the Great Pedro Ponds contain brackish water (Figure 2.10).

The largest of these ponds is fairly permanent, showing on Browne's 1755 map; the other is subject to wide fluctuations, even from one year to the next.

In terms of soils, the physiography of Jamaica's entire south is mostly characterized by 1) a combination of alluvium of Pleistocene and recent origin, 2) white limestone of the Middle

Eocene and Lower Miocene origins, 3) yellow limestone of Middle Eocene origins, and 4) soils

77 resulting from sedimentary/metamorphic/igneous formations of Upper Cretaceous origins in the

‘interrupted band’ mentioned above that runs along the northern extremities of the southern parishes. Almost all of St Elizabeth consists of the alluvium and white limestone soils except for a small area of the yellow limestone in the north near the borders with Trelawny and St James in the Nassau Mountains (National Atlas of Jamaica 1971).

Figure 2.9. The Great Pedro Ponds. GoogleEarth Image, 7o52’27.20”N; 77o44’09.05”W. 06 March 2010. GoogleEarth 7, Google, Inc. (Last accessed 23 October 2012).

Within the study area itself, the same general characteristics apply. According to

FAO/UNESCO soil classifications, the region lies at the border between areas of predominantly coastal plain fluvisols and limestone nitisols (Asprey and Robbins 1953; Henneman and Mantel

78 1995, vi; FAO 2007). A study done by the Jamaican Ministry of Agriculture in 1989 provides further details specific to the study area and utilizes the USDA classification system. Directly along the coast west of the Great Pedro Bluff lies an area of Alfisols formed on sandstone

(referred to as the Sandy Bank and Treasure Beach series), while another narrow band of Alfisols formed on old alluvium identified as the Newcombe Valley series stretches northward (Ministry

23 of Agriculture 1989). Another small area of old alluvium-derived Vertisols (Pedro series) lies just inland from the Alfisols on the coastal plain, running southeast to northwest in a band approximately 4000 m long and varying in width from approximately 100 m at its narrowest in the southeast to a maximum of 1100 m near the northwest end. The last soil type in the coastal plain area is an Entisol (Crane series) formed on beach sand and is found in two small pockets, one at Frenchman's Bay, and a larger approximately 3000 m to the southeast lying between the

Sandy Bank and Treasure Beach Alfisols and inland from the Great Pedro Bluff.

Moving inland, Oxisols (identified as St Ann and Newell series, differentiated primarily by location and slope) and Inceptisols (Bonnygate and Bonnygate variant series), both derived from hard limestone, constitute approximately a third of the study area running from the Pedro

Plains into the hills (Ministry of Agriculture 1989). Another third of the study area interior is characterized by complexes of 1) St Ann Oxisols and Inceptisols, and 2) Inceptisols with many limestone outcroppings. This second complex is found both well inland and near the coast, separated by other soil types. To the east of the Great Pedro Bluff, it reaches right to the coast as the Santa Cruz Mountains come to an abrupt end, creating the 570 m escarpment known as

‘Lovers' Leap.’

23 All of the soils descriptions in this paragraph and the next come from the same source, except as noted. 79 Inherent fertility levels of these soils range from ‘medium’ to ‘low’ with main limitations of slope and/or stoniness for the Oxisols, Inceptisols, and complexes; main limitations are workability for the Vertisols and Newcombe Valley Alfisols, and salinity/sodicity for the Entisols and Sandy Bank/Treasure Beach Alfisols (Ministry of Agriculture 1989). Although much of the area has been described as “marginal for cultivation but suitable for tree crops or pasture” or

“marginal for cultivation and susceptible to erosion” (National Atlas of Jamaica 1971, 19), much of it is in fact cultivated, and has been for decades, in addition to the areas under pasture and scrub forest. Agricultural capability is best in the St Ann series Oxisols and in the

Oxisol/Inceptisol complex (St Ann-Bonnygate), both identified as ‘Terra Rossa’ soils

(Agricultural Chemistry Division 1964, 8-9) and described in the Ministry of Agriculture's 1989 report as being under cropping of watermelon, scallion (referred to in Jamaica as 'skellion'), onion, and tomato; recent observation has revealed areas of cantaloupe, sweet pepper, hot pepper, cucumber, carrot, and zucchini in addition to these. The Sandy Bank and Treasure Beach

Alfisols and the Crane Entisols are soils soils in the area with the lowest inherent fertility, and are currently under either acacia, cactus, and other xerophytic plants or pasturage. As one elderly farmer told me in response to a question about his childhood and how he learned about agricultural practices, “I learn di red sile bettah dan di yellow sile fi faamin'. Di red sile di good sile, mon! ('I learned that the red soil is better than the yellow soil for farming. The red soil is the really good soil')”

2.3.3. Historical/cultural Characteristics

Both local informants and Howard (1950) report the presence of Arawak settlement in the study area. Howard (1950) described midden or village sites at or near Pedro (Cross), Southfield,

80 Hounslow, and Black River, while cave sites were also found at Pedro and Hounslow. My local friend and assistant researcher told me of hearing as a boy about an Arawak cave site in the rocks of the Great Pedro Point near Great Bay; regardless of the veracity of the story, he said it made sense. The area around Great Bay would have supplied many of the Arawaks’ needs: thatch for shelter, good fishing grounds, and a supply of fresh water from natural well-holes. However, as is the case with nearly all of Jamaica, the Arawak imprint has faded. Likewise, aside from the name of the 'Pedro Plains' area, virtually nothing from the time of the Spanish occupation of Jamaica is visible; the area is not indicated with a named settlement from the early maps or records referred to by Bryan (1992) or Sherlock and Bennett (1998). Padrón's (2003) book reproduces a simple map, unfortunately not referenced in the text, titled “Hatos y Rios Jamaica” that indicates a ranch called ‘Pereda’' in the area of the Pedro Plains (160).

Even early in the English period of colonization, the primary marker of the colonial presence in the Caribbean – the plantation – was noticeably absent in the study area.

Examination of survey records for plantations in Jamaica only showed a handful of plantations of any type in St Elizabeth as a whole, and an even smaller number were found in or near to the study area. Those properties that did exist in the parish produced a number of commodities, contradicting the commonly held notion of ‘sugar-only’ for Jamaican plantations.

Especially important for St Elizabeth were livestock and logwood (Haematoxylum campechianum), frequently both from a single concern. The heartwood of the logwood tree was used to produce an economically important dye in Europe (Armstrong 1992). The name 'pen' indicates a (usually) large rural property where livestock was raised or fattened for sale to estates and/or local markets, and is very common in St Elizabeth and St Ann, both well “known for their cattle and horses” (Higman 2001, 170). Fullerswood Pen and Vineyard Pen, both near Black

81 River, produced livestock and logwood; for multiple years between 1815 and 1845, the value of

24 logwood exceeded that of cattle at Fullerswood (Crop Accounts 1815, 1823, 1834, 1835).

Goshen Pen further to the western side of the parish near the border with Manchester produced livestock. The name ‘Southfield Plantation/Pen’ appears in several accounts – although it is not mentioned in Higman’s (2001) – and is indicated as being just within the study area, but no records appear in the Crop Accounts. This could be either because the property was designated as such but was not in production, or because the amounts produced were too low to be recorded

(Hodgson n.d.).

In higher elevations, coffee was produced. Although the best known (and most expensive) coffee from Jamaica comes from the Blue Mountains in the east, two coffee plantations existed in St Elizabeth in close proximity to each other near the study area: both Hermitage and Malvern were in the Santa Cruz Mountains (Higman 2001). Due to its elevation and associated coolness,

Malvern became a popular area for wealthy estate owners' residences according to local sources, and remains a small population center today.

Several sugar plantations did exist in St Elizabeth. Minchinton (1978) described accounts for the years 1742-1751 for a Barton Plantation, while Ingram (2000) indicated surveys existing for Stirling Castle and Belvidere Plantations; several eighteenth and nineteenth century maps show a variety of other small plantations scattered across the northern and northwestern parts of the parish and indicate the type of mill used to grind the sugar (Browne 1755; Robertson 1804;

Wood 1916). Higman (2001) includes Holland and Vauxhall Plantations in his surveys, while

24 These ledger books were produced annually for each estate/plantation/pen in colonial Jamaica from 1740-1927 and gave an account of all revenues and expenses for the year. They were sworn statements from managers or accountants, and were required to prevent fraud by agents or trustees acting on behalf of owners, many of whom were absentees. 82 Appleton appears both Browne's (1755) and Robertson's (1804) maps (Holland and Appleton still produce cane, and the latter is the site of the world-famous rum distillery). All of these locations, as well as several others indicated on Wood's 1916 map, are found well to the northwest of the study area in 1) flatter or more gently undulating terrain allow for larger holdings necessary to make sugar production profitable, and 2) areas that receive more rainfall.

Sugar plantations/estates did not get established in southern St Elizabeth parish because of these two main limiting environmental factors, with the topography reinforcing the impact of the lower rainfall regime in the area. Sugar has a long history of production in the some of the driest parts of Jamaica such as St Catherine, and remains an important economic activity there. However, the broader areas of coastal plain in St Catherine south of the island's central uplands allowed for the construction of long irrigation aqueducts to bring water to the cane fields from reservoirs in the highlands as well as from rivers such as the Rio Cobre or other surface hydrologic features

(Figure 2.11). In addition to these physical factors, the (limited) introduction of ranching/grazing by the Spanish in the area's 'savannas' (e.g., Bull Savanna, Horse Savanna,

Burnt Savanna) made continuing those activities more attractive.

This distribution of plantations in St Elizabeth and their relative absence in the study area had significant impacts on the subsequent development of smallholder agriculture there. Even though true plantations were largely absent, the land of the study area, like the rest of St

Elizabeth, was divided into holdings given to colonial proprietors. A map from the 1660s shows two properties that produced sugar in St Elizabeth, which at that time extended all the way to the western extremity of the island; these sites would currently be in the parish of Westmoreland.

Several properties are labeled by owner, and eleven other unnamed settlements indicated as

“small farms” are shown (Moxon n.d.) without indicating the nature of what they produced. A

83 number of estate maps from the late eighteenth through the nineteenth centuries for St Elizabeth show much of the study area under ownership by various people. Many of these properties likely produced livestock for sale to plantations with greater numbers of slaves (Higman 2001; Higman and Hudson 2005).

Figure 2.10. Sugar irrigation canal, St Catherine Parish, June 2012. Photo by the author.

2.3.4. People

According to a local source, the community of Great Bay at the eastern end of the coastal portion of the study area (See Figure 2.10: Great Bay is the water body in the lower central portion of the image beginning south of the ponds and ending at the Great Pedro Bluff; the community of Great

84 Bay is visible to the right) was for many years the hub of a busy and thriving village based on the fishing beach. Important to the area’s success was a water supply, which likely contributed to the

Arawaks' settling in the area (see Section 2.2.1.). Eighteenth and early nineteenth century maps show several wells and springs fairly close to each other and rather close to the coast, as well.

One of these, called ‘Blunter's Well,’ appears on several maps (Newcombe Valley and about St

Elizabeth 1792; Lands at Pedro 1820; Wood 1916) and is still present, although no water was in

25 it when I came upon it in 2012 Figure (2.12). Harrison's (n.d.) map of 19th-century vintage in the National Library of Jamaica collection shows a wharf and buildings at Great Bay and a road labeled ‘Road from Pedro wharf to Potsdam,’ reflecting the importance of that route and the terminus at the wharf. Wood's (1916) map shows, in addition to Blunter's Well, a ‘Gale's Spring’ at Great Bay. A local whose family has lived in the community for generations said that farmers from an inland community called Top Hill used to come there to draw water and carry it back odonkeys; this represents a journey of around 17 kilometers (10.5 miles) each way over areas of significant relief.

These factors made Great Bay an important, if small, commercial spot on the south coast of St Elizabeth. An informant reported that well into the mid-twentieth century, it was one of the only commercial points on the entire south coast between Kingston and Black River/Savanna-la-

Mar. A rather nondescript rectangular building near the beach is still referred to as ‘Ford's Store,’ and on days that the fishermen were selling their catches, it apparently was a beehive of activity, selling and buying, with grocery store, bar, and ‘haberdashery’/dry goods sections with wares from Kingston and abroad.

25 The collection has another Thomas Harrison map of St Elizabeth Parish dated 1886. 85

Figure 2.11. Blunter's Well, June 2012. (Photo by the author).

Even considering the range of ethnic origins in Jamaica and St Elizabeth, the area stands out. Many people from the communities around Treasure Beach claim to be able to spot someone else from the region in a crowd in Kingston. In large part, this is attributed to the significant presence in the ethnic mix of Scots, and a glance through property holdings in the historical maps reveals a number of Scottish and Irish ames: Sinclair, Campbell, Graham, Lynch,

Gale/Gayle, Mullins, Reynolds along with English surnames (Lands at Pedro 1820; Plan of

Malvern Chase Outlines 1870; Wood 1916; Harrison n.d., About Round Hill and Lynch's Vale n.d.). It is common to see people in the area with red hair, freckles, blue eyes, and coppery-red complexion; one tourism-promotion website shows a picture of a local ‘red man’ 86 (treasurebeach.net 2006) and attributes a seventeenth-century shipwreck offshore for this ethnic influence after the failure of the ‘Darien’ settlement scheme in Panama (Moxon 2008; Mann

2011). This commonly voiced opinion is possible, but recent evidence also suggests a more recent wreck near Great Bay (Moxon 2008) to go along with the more prosaic links to Scottish origins in the region identified earlier.

According to local informants, people living in the Great Bay area only saw electricity arrive in the mid- 1970s, though other nearby communities were electrified in the previous decade. The reason given is that those areas were JLP areas and that was the party in power;

Great Bay had to wait until Michael Manley's accession to the Prime Minister's office in 1972.

People in their mid-fifties and above said that they used to eat fish often `with the fishing beach so close. Chickens were common, kept for eggs as well as meat on occasion. One local resident told me he did not see his mother cooking chicken from a store until the 1960s when a grocery store in Southfield, roughly ten kilometers (six miles) away, started carrying it. Of course, with no electricity, there was no refrigeration, so any store-bought meat had to be carried home quickly in the tropical heat and cooked quickly. People apparently raised lots of greens and vegetables, but purchased a great deal of staples at places like Ford's Store and a myriad of other small shops that still are scattered through the hills. Rice, flour, cornmeal, and their common fat, coconut oil – produced from coconut plantations in St Thomas and other eastern parishes – were regular purchases.

Currently, the Treasure Beach area and neighboring interior communites show both similiarities and contrasts. The coastal areas show a wide range of income levels, along with numbers of expats from the US, Canada, the UK, and Europe. The relatively low levels of tourist development make it an attractive seaside area for property purchases by these expats and

87 seasonal residents. The interior communities do not share the ethnic diversity, but a wide range of income levels is evident there as well. A combination of more inexpensive land away from the immediate coast and cooler temperatures from resulting from the quick rise in elevation and strong sea breezes make many of these areas popular with middle class and higher Jamaicans, and the hills are dotted with widely scattered large opulent homes among small modest to

Spartan dwellings.

2.3.5. Tourism

While Jamaica's north coast features long expanses of white sandy beaches resulting from reefs just off the shore, in much of St Elizabeth these limestone reefs are found right at the coast itself, leading to very rocky coastlines with small ‘pockets’ of sandy beach, often found in small coves. As a result, the north is characterized by a number of high-density tourist areas, such as

Ocho Rios, Runaway Bay, Montego Bay, Oracabessa, and the iconic ‘Seven Mile Beach’ of

Negril at the western tip of the island. By contrast, the study area features one modestly-sized top-end resort (the beach of which is a few dozen meters removed from the rest of the property), a few other smaller and more modest resorts, several smaller hotels, and a number of villas and guesthouses. Therefore, though tourism certainly has an impact on the local economy, it operates on a very different scale than the ‘mass tourism’ so often associated with Jamaica. This topic is developed further in Chapter Six.

2.3.6. Conclusion to Part II

The study area in south St Elizabeth is not entirely unique for a Jamaican setting, but is also far from common. Historically, the lack of plantations led to different land uses, or lack of

88 conflicts over land use, that were evident in other areas of Jamaica in which local peasants faced huge holdings in plantations and estates that only cultivated a fraction of their holdings but did not allow access to land for food production. As a result, grazing and small- to medium-holder operations developed, eventually becoming known as the ‘breadbasket’ of the country due to the high production of vegetables. This land use pattern resulted from a combination of topography and climate, both unsuited for growing sugar in the colonial period, nor the traditional export crops of bananas and citrus afterward. For onions, tomatoes, carrots, melons, and other produce, it is perhaps the best area in all Jamaica. The area also is inhabited by a rather unique ethnocultural and socioeconomic mix of people, not only from this history, but also owing to its position on the south coast, supplies of water in the nineteenth century, and the nature of the tourist development that has taken place in the late twentieth century.

South St Elizabeth is of course connected to the rest of Jamaica, and therefore subject to the opportunities, constraints, issues, and problems that face the country and the Caribbean region. Therefore, the people of south St Elizabeth enact and embody many of the outcomes of decisions made in Washington, London, New York, Frankfurt, Shanghai, Doha, and other centers of finance, trade, and business. They experience and circulate the operations of discourse in these power relations. The following chapter will describe the effects of these on characteristics of agriculture in Jamaica today.

89 CHAPTER 3 AGRICULTURE IN JAMAICA AND SOUTH ST ELIZABETH

3.1. History, Crops, and Commodities

Throughout the colonial period, ‘the plantation’ served as the basis for agricultural activity in Jamaica, as it “provided the spatial context within which a large proportion of the

1 population lived and worked” (Higman 2001, 5), both before emancipation in 1838 and afterwards. Even after the decline of sugar as the mainstay of Jamaica's economy, the economic and social contexts of the plantation/estate continued to shape ideas and meanings about agriculture and agriculturalists, providing aspects of the contemporary landscape with the ghost- lines of a palimpsest. According to Weis (2006b), Jamaica's landscape "is an unjust historical relic" (par. 12), one in which small farmers remain constrained by their marginal position within it. This plantation-based history therefore plays a crucial role in tracing the discursive construction of 'agriculture' for Jamaica and the Caribbean.

As discussed in Chapter 2, enthusiasm for sugar production developed very rapidly in

Jamaica, which after its seizure by England became part of the arena within which the struggle for control of the (then) global sugar market was contested. This struggle, as described by

Williams (1984), Mintz (1986), and Mann (2011), had significance not only for the various

European states involved, but obviously for the colonial economies and landscapes, as it encouraged, or demanded, monoculture (Williams 1984, 116). This monoculture of sugar was

1 1838 represents the second, ‘actual’ date of Emancipation in Jamaica. Slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire by Parliamentary decree in 1834, but all slaves over the age of six were required to serve a six-year 'apprenticeship' during which they were required to give 40 hours of labor per week to their former owners –without pay – 'preparing' them for eventual freedom. This was merely a way of mollifying the planters' lobby in Parliament and extending the period in which slave labor could be appropriated and exploited. This 'apprenticeship period' ended two years early. 90 not the initial way that land was utilized by Europeans colonizing the Caribbean; as indicated earlier, small farms were predominant at the outset of the colonial period. Diversification of agricultural activity was encouraged, as evidenced by Oliver Cromwell sending instructions in

1656 that colonists in Jamaica should grow things that would produce food and thereby mitigate the costs of the colony and its occupation (Williams 1984, 116). However, forty-two years later the subordination of all things agricultural to sugar was made apparent by a vote in Parliament, where a proposal would have prohibited exports of foodstuffs such as corn, flour, bread/biscuit, and the like. This proposal was rejected, as it would have required (at least some) planters to remove their attention from the growing of wealth-generating commodities (Williams 1984).

Thus, cultivation of sugar swept everything before it, with attendant social and economic

2 consequences.

Despite the dominance of monocultural sugar agriculture in Jamaica and other colonies in a similar situation, alternative agricultural landscapes did begin to appear. Since the sole purpose of the plantation was to enrich its owner, the most productive lands were reserved for production of the export commodity. In the flatter islands of the Caribbean such as Barbados, the result was that almost all of the agricultural space was given over to sugar. The varied topography of

Jamaica, however, with its areas of coastal plains and other low-relief areas interspersed with areas of steep hilly terrain, led to a different set of conditions that helped bring about these alternative agricultural landscapes. To be sure, most of the best agricultural lands characterized by low relief and productive soils remained in the hands of the sugar estates, even if a significant portion of those lands were not in use at any given time, but it was the conditions of the

2 Of course, the creation of monocultures as a mainstay of agricultural practice has significant environmental impacts as well. Some of these will be considered in Chapter 4. 91 plantation itself that led to the emergence of a 'peasant' or 'peasant-like' agriculture that existed along with the monocultures of the large estates.

In some ways, use of the term 'peasant' is problematic for a discussion of the emergent smallholder agriculture in the sugar colonies of the Caribbean. Besson and Momsen (2007) cite

Dalton (1967, 1971) defining 'peasant' as a broad category of agricultural activity between

‘tribal’ (based on subsistence) and ‘post-peasant modern farmer’ (emphasis mine); this typology also included sub-classifications, such as the ‘hybrid’ or ‘composite’ peasantries of Latin

America and the Caribbean (Besson and Momsen 2007). ‘Peasants’ are characterized by combining subsitence cultivation along with selling to/buying from wider markets, absence of machine technology, maintaining elements of traditional social organization, and a hybridity in the situation of land and labor markets: land and work are partly divorced from a pure economic sphere and partly embedded within social relations (Dalton 1967, 1971). Mintz (1989) also noted that peasants are dependent in various ways upon wider political and economic spheres of control than those of their immediate surroundings or context.

Caribbean ‘peasantry’ evolved very differently from the manner it did in Europe or Asia, since it developed on “the ruins of the plantations” (Trouillot 1988, 21) among a people who were not indigenous to the region they were farming, but rather were forcibly transplanted from another part of the world. Therefore, the ‘peasant traditions’ in the Caribbean context only developed in the aftermath of ‘modernization,’ which contradicts the typical conceptualization of

‘modernization’ doing away with such traditions. Mintz (1961) coined the term ‘proto-peasantry,’ describing people for whom peasant adaptation was undertaken while they were still slaves; use of the term was adopted by Besson (2007). Mintz (1989) also referred to the those in the

Caribbean as 'reconstituted peasantries' as they had begun as something other than peasants

92 (132). In discussing use of ‘peasant’ in the context of the Caribbean, Grossman (1993) both acknowledged the controversy involved and offered a useful guideline that follows Troulliot

(1988) in referring to people engaged in the peasant labor process instead of “the essence of some universal peasant type [which] permits inclusion of the numerous small-scale cultivators in the Caribbean” (365, note 4; emphases mine). Despite the difficulties inherent in the term, it will be used hereafter, with all attendant complications understood.

Especially in the British sugar colonies and French St Domingue (later Haiti), the plantation owners themselves introduced the practices that led to the development of a fully- formed peasantry during the period of slavery (Mintz 1979, 1989; Besson 2007). Despite the best efforts of the planters' lobby in Parliament, sugar became less profitable for Jamaican concerns, in no small part due to the increasing availability of cheap sugar with greater economies of scale possible from other places such as Cuba, Brazil, South Africa, and other locations around the colonized tropics (Williams 1984; Mintz 1986; Mann 2011). Then as now, the drive to maintain profitability led to seeking ways to reduce costs. In addition, importing food for slaves become increasingly costly due to several factors: disruptions caused by the American Revolution, wars among the colonial powers, and drought, this last due perhaps to an extraordinary El Niño event

3 or series beginning in the 1780s (Quinn 1993; Grove 2007).

One possible solution was undertaken by the British government on behalf of the planters' lobby in Parliament: sponsoring an expedition to Tahiti by the H.M.S. Bounty, commanded by

William Bligh, in order to bring back breadfruit trees, which once established could provide large

3 The name of the ship reflected a hopeful view of its mission, bringing 'the bounty of Tahiti to the colonies.' The famous mutiny, fueled by the crowding on the ship due to the allocation of space for the plants, the labor required to bring them above deck each day and below each night, and their consumption of limited water supplies aborted the initial effort, but a second voyage by Bligh on the H.M.S. Providence was successful. 93 yields of food without taking labor away from the cultivation of export commodities (Oster and

Oster 1985; Dalessandri and Boor 1994; Spary and White 2004). Another was to allow slaves to cultivate provision grounds on unused or marginal lands.

This practice was not carried out evenly throughout the Caribbean. For example,

Barbados was relatively flat and therefore covered nearly completely with cane, at least in areas where agriculture was in any way feasible. In Jamaica on the other hand, areas of hilly topography both served to separate the estates from each other and made land unsuited for cane available to slaves for use as provision grounds in order that they could feed themselves, or at least provide a significant portion of their own sustenance (Mintz 1979, 1979; Besson 2007);

Pulsipher (1990) reported that the practice was especially well suited to Jamaica's hills, and also provided social benefits that extended beyond the harvest in helping construct some measure of independent action and elements of a decent life (33). Slaves expanded the practice beyond the planters' expectations, producing surpluses that were sold in public markets, a Sunday tradition in Jamaica that along with the topography led to this practice becoming more advanced there than in other British sugar colonies (Besson 2007, 86). By the 1820s, provision grounds were observed either in marginal ‘backlands’ of plantations, or in some cases for plantations near the coast in the western part of the island, removed from the actual plantation by distances of ten or more miles (Besson 2007, 48).

The ending of slavery in 1838 precipitated a transformation into a dual agricultural economy in Jamaica, with peasant farming 1) occurring alongside the plantations, and 2) appearing on lands in the interior that had previously been either mostly vacant or neglected for settlement by Europeans (Higman 2001, 5), especially in those hilly or otherwise unsuitable

94 areas for profitable production of plantation commodities mentioned above. This emergence of peasant farming has been the subject of some controversy, outlined by Besson (2007).

The former slaves indeed left the estates after Emancipation, but under what conditions and for what reasons? Beckford (1999) declared that this ‘flight from the estates’ resulted from the desire to get as far away as possible from the brutality they had experienced in slavery and brought them to where land was available in the unsettled and less desireable rugged interior.

Mintz (1979, 1989) claimed that the rise of the Caribbean peasantry represented a resistance response to the externally imposed plantation system. Hall (1978) saw the ‘flight from the estates’ as resulting not from slavery's horrors, but rather from the inequities of the immediate post-Emancipation period, when estate owners established restrictions on the use of established provision grounds, set high rents on housing, and/or demanded work obligations as a condition of land use by former slaves. Marshall (1979) supported Mintz (1979) on the idea of ‘resistance’ but saw Hall's (1978) work as significant in that it recognized the role played by policies of labor recruitment and provision ground access by the planters: ex-slaves expected to be able to use plantation gardens and provision grounds. Thus it was the obstructive planter policy (Besson

2007) that drove the creation of a peasantry independent of the estates.

Of course, as discussed above, sugar was not the only export-oriented agricultural commodity produced in Jamaica. Coffee (Coffea canefora/C. arabica) was an early arrival, followed by cacao (Theobroma cacao). Banana (Musa sapientum), citrus, pimento (allspice,

Pimenta officianalis), coconut (Cocos nucifera), pineapple (Ananas comosus), and other plants along with logwood (Haematoxylum campechianum, used for manufacture of dyes) were produced in various parts of Jamaica for export, along with local use of some production.

Colonial-era trade networks emphasized exports of these commodities to the metropole while

95 simultaneously establishing a market for imports of foodstuffs, even as the ‘proto-peasantry’ discussed above was being established. The lingering effects of these networks are both a material legacy of the period of slavery discussed in the previous chapter and a foundation for the manner in which smallholder agriculture in Jamaica has been positioned within ‘agriculture writ large’ that has been discursively constructed.

3.2. Legacies of the Plantations, Agriculture, and Modernity

In Jamaica as elsewhere in former colonies of the social majority world, smallholder agriculture is frequently characterized as inefficient and backward compared to the industrial, scientific, technologically-oriented 'modern' agriculture of the social minority world. However, not only is this characterization not fully accurate, but it rests upon multiple and interrelated elements: the oft-unvoiced assumptions of a ‘level playing field’ on which all agriculture can be evaluated, a failure to consider the economic and political structures within which these two different agricultural modes developed, and, most broadly, the discursive systems that rationalize these assumptions and silences.

The overlapping discourses of ‘modernity’ and ‘race’ contribute to such a discursive system. As discussed in Chapter 1, modernist doctrines promote control over a disorded and unruly Nature. The construction of race emerges from the same discourse, steeped as it was in ideas of inferiority of those people who lived closer to that unruly nature. People who practiced agricultural techniques that looked disorderly and did not plant in neat rows in cleared, tilled fields were thought to do so because they were not ‘advanced’ enough to see the advantages of such a system (Cronon 1983). The ‘reason’ that allowed for the mastery over Nature manifested

96 by the precise and rational character of ‘civilized’ agriculture was narrowly construed and exclusionary.

The ‘modern’ agriculture of the world's main grain-and-livestock complexes (Weis

2006a), especially North America and Europe, is based entirely on the focused attention and concerted efforts of both governments and capital interests. In the US, for example, governments helped finance transportation infrastructure (canals, roads, railroads, ports), and founded land- grant agricultural colleges and universities that produced new crops, technologies, and other

4 innovations as well as granting patent protections for them. Tariffs protected producers from import competition. Direct and indirect payments to farmers, including massive government purchases of surpluses produced as a result of agricultural policies protected those in the

5 agricultural sector from the impacts of plenty on the market. Of course, the largest (and perhaps most often overlooked) subsidy provided to US and Canadian farmers was the dispossession and seizure of some of the best agricultural land on the planet from the indigenous peoples, who were not 'using it' to its fullest degree of efficiency.

These then are some of the structures that helped shape the discourses that constructed agriculture as being a certain way. Before returning to this topic more fully in the next chapters, the following section describes the emergence of agriculture in Jamaica aside from that which characterized the plantation commodities.

4 This paragraph is a very basic summary of Wilk (2006); he offers a fuller and more wide- ranging discussion of the issue (134-138) that includes relevant and specific illustrations of the outcomes of these processes. 5 An illustration of this phenomenon: when I was in elementary school in the 1960s, milk with school lunches was sold for one third of the store price of the same volume due to the US Federal government's buying of surplus milk. 97 The basic premise of the colonial enterprise in Jamaica and the Caribbean, as elsewhere in the world, was to enrich the metropole in general, and those in various positions to profit individually in particular. These ends were reached via various paths, aside from the most obvious ones directly following from selling, shipping, processing, and/or distributing the commodity itself. So-called ‘spread effects’ were achieved by the plantation economy in various locations, both in the colony and the metropole. According to Beckford (1999), “[m]erchants and bankers in the metropole played an important role. The merchants provisioned the plantation with supplies of consumption and capital goods and handled the sale of staple output in the metropolis, and the bankers provided the necessary credit to lubricate these transactions” (45); of course, these bankers additionally profited from interest payments on this credit.

Colonial policies creating the demand for manufactured goods thus played a significant role in creating the wealth of the capitalist world, and food played a part of this. In addition to

Beckford's (1999) reference above, Fraser (2007) discussed the standardization and production of foods constituting the “maritime ration” (228) on which sailors and European workers depended, and also maintained the Caribbean’s reliance on imported food discussed in Chapter 2.

Availability of this contributed to the ‘food snobbery’ that existed among colonial elites who refused to eat local food for reasons of its inferior status as well as among a class of merchants who discouraged local food production since it would erode their economic position. As Fraser

(2007) stated, “social values are reinforced by the types of food consumed, and one’s reputation and respectability are also related to the consumption of imported food. Public food is high- status tinned food while private food is low-status ‘bush’ food, grown on small ‘invisible’ plots, often by women” (228).

98 These associations lead to two main results. First, the manufacture, shipping, and commerce involved enriched, or at least helped maintain, a certain class of people within the colonial systems and structures. Second, these associations' shaping of desire in this manner provided a 'feedback loop' that perpetuated the economic benefits that accrued to this class, as imported saltfish and flour became common dietary staples and Caribbean residents' frequent identification of imported foods as ‘more convenient,’ ‘higher quality,’ or ‘better tasting’ drove consumption spending in specific directions away from that which would support local agriculture and food production (Mintz 1989; Grossman 1993, 1998a, 1998b; Beckford 1999;

Wilk 2006). Wilk (2006) reported that late nineteenth and early twentieth century menus for holiday and wedding dinners among elites in British Honduras/Belize consisted of imported tinned foods served on imported china, using imported cutlery and table accoutremonts; the entire point of these was that they were not grounded in the colony, but were the products of a

‘modern’ society (103). Thus, the paired hierarchized dualisms of ‘metropolitan/colonial,’ and

‘modern/backward,’ are reinforced. Eating becomes a discursive practice, and by extension, so too does the manner of producing what is eaten.

Fraser's (2007) use of the terms ‘respectability’ and ‘reputation’ above reflect deeper and more specific meanings in the context of the Caribbean than those perhaps ascribed in everyday use. Wilk (2006) describes them as “two registers [or] systems of code...these...were arenas (or stages) where speech, dress, religion, and many forms of public and private consumption communicated information about each person's position, abilities, and aspirations” (79, emphasis in original). The first of these registers or code systems, ‘respectability,’ reflects values derived directly from the middle classes of the metropole and/or North America; ‘reputation’ on the other hand was based more on indigenous value systems, or in the case of the Caribbean, those

99 associated with African or African-derived ‘Creolized’ origins (Besson 1993, 2002; Miller 1994;

Wilk 2006). Wilk (1994; 2002; 2006) describes the notion of ‘respectability’ by employing the concept of ‘colonial time.’

In this concept, time, distance, and the traditions and customs that make up 'culture' become merged and interchangeable ways of describing and naturalizing how and why people are different: certain people are 'stuck in the past,' or places are far away from 'the center,' or practice 'the old backward ways.' Modernity, therefore, can become conferred by changing these various elements. Thus, the 'time-space compression' resulting from technologies of communication and transportation as well as the acceleration of economic processes (Harvey

1990) is a means to a linear progress: it brings people from the unchanging past to a bright and dynamic future, from isolated untouched places closer to the bustling city, and from static and bound tradition to glittering modernity (Wilk 2006, 79-80). Using certain kinds of products indicated status because of their being markers of civilization that reached outward to the periphery: “Goods and fashions from metropolitan centers measure colonial time; their diffusion outward into the colonial world was like a clock measuring the lag between 'traditional backward' colonies and modern metropolis” (Wilk 2006, 80, emphasis in original). Thus consumerism became a discursive practice of ‘the modern,’ as it indicated active participation in

‘progress.’

I argue below that particular ‘ways of knowing’ that are the products of the formal education systems of the so-called 'advanced countries' have joined with these consumer products (or, have themselves become commoditized products for consumption) as markers of both individual and societies' transitions from the ‘backward and primitive’ to the ‘modern.’ As a

100 result, agricultural methods and practices were also markers of 'colonial time,' with the diffusion of this knowledge from European and American scientific agronomic centers to the

'Third World' serving to mark the arrival of a superior and thoroughly modern knowledge, with its attendant technology.

Returning to the topic of food consumption, the end of World War II provided conditions

5 that deepened these many of these associations for Caribbean peoples. US and British manufacturers of processed foods, deprived of the ready market created by the need to feed the armies fighting in the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific, shifted focus to “the invention and marketing of an unprecedented variety of packaged and prepared foods, now called 'convenience foods,' which found their way in to export markets...[t]he world's agro-industries [create and] pump out a constant stream of new products” (Wilk 2006, 143, 147). Though he is writing specifically about Belize, Wilk (2006) could be describing Jamaica in saying, “the problems with local agriculture...are not local at all” (136), but result from the colony's history of being run from far away with the primary aim being to keep its commodities flowing into the metropole's production chain as cheaply as possible at the same time it purchases metropolitan manufactures.

The aims and goals envisioned in the establishment of Belize, Jamaica, or any other colonial territory never involved the eventual development of a well-balanced economy that could function within a global system for the benefit of its citizens, but rather to create an effective conduit to transform, via an alchemy of colonial, industrial, and capitalist processes, Caribbean commodities into wealth for Britons.

5 Linked to the development of this agro-industrial system was the tremendous post-World War II growth of synthetic nitrogen-based fertilizers created from leftover stockpiles of raw materials for munitions that needed a peacetime use, a story told well in Michael Pollan's popular The Omnivore's Dilemma (2006). 101 As the colonial period waned after the Second World War, nascent Caribbean economies, including Jamaica, sought to develop bases of economic strength, often with deleterious impacts on agriculture. In multiple cases in former colonies, post-independence governments gave priority to developing economic sectors other than small farming, such as industry, mining, and tourism because they were seen as the path to success in the global economy. The result was the lack of any effective policy for agriculture (Brierley 1998; Heath 1988). Frequently, when agriculture was considered at all by governments, the sector was viewed primarily with an eye towards export crops such as the familiar sugar, bananas, coffee – and in the case of Guyana, rice

(Brierley 1998; Grossman 1998b; Beckford, Barker, and Bailey 2007). This orientation towards export crops has led to agriculture in the Caribbean reflecting closely aspects of the era of the plantation: a ‘dualism’ between export crops grown on large holdings (sometimes controlled by transnational corporations) that receive the lion’s share of government supports and food crops grown by many smallholders who frequently do not own the land they cultivate (Barker 1993;

Beckford, 1999; Grossman 1998a; Beckford 2000; Canterbury 2007; Beckford, Barker, and

Bailey 2007). In the case of Jamaica, Beckford, Barker, and Bailey (2007) point out that this structural dichotomy has led to “dependent and asymmetrical relationships between small-scale farmers and centres of economic and political power, whose competition they face in both domestic and export markets” (204).

One of the ways this asymmetry was enacted was through the creation of various associations or ‘Boards’ for particular commodities. For example, Jamaica has Boards for producers of bananas, cacao, coconut, coffee, citrus, pimento (allspice), livestock, and of course, cane and sugar (Singh, Rankine, and Seepersad 2005; Jamaica Agricultural Society 2008;

Ministry of Agriculture 2011). These often worked in ways that did not necessarily represent the

102 interests of small farmers; in fact they often served as lobbying agents and representatives of the interests of the largest landholders, who 1) through their holdings could take advantage of economies of scale, and 2) generally were well-connected politically (Grossman 1993; 1998b;

Trouillot 1988). The commodities and industries on whose behalf these organizations operate are all export-oriented. Therefore they meet the demands of consumers in foreign markets rather than provide basic food needs of the local population; this ‘extroversion’ of economic production is one of three main features of economic structural disarticulation (deJanvry and Sadolet 1983;

Huang 1995). Another feature is the absence of linkages among economic sectors, which will be examined further below. The last feature of economies characterized by structural disarticulation is unevenness of sectoral development; though not speaking specifically about Jamaica, Huang

(1995) could well have been describing the dualism evident in Jamaican agriculture well in discussing this point:

Stagnation in agriculture has become an increasingly thorny problem…since the poor are largely concentrated in the agricultural sector…industrialization has been promoted the detriment of agriculture; agriculture has been squeezed, disguised unemployment has been tolerated, the farmers’ responsiveness to incentives has been ignored…the excessive and disproportionate growth of the service sector [in Jamaica’s case, exemplified by tourism] has exacerbated the problem…(166)

The minimal incomes and weak purchasing power of most people that results from this structural disarticulation greatly inhibits the possibilities for improving the lives of the most socially and economically marginalized and vulnerable (deJanvry 1983; Huang 1995). Often this group includes smallholder farmers.

103 3.3. Contemporary Agricultural Patterns in Jamaica

The next section of this chapter will offer and analyze selected data on exports and agricultural production in Jamaica from the period preceding political independence in 1962 through the mid-1990s. This analysis will provide illustrations of the impact of neoliberal-driven ideologies of free trade that 1) disadvantage Jamaican producers trying to provide their 'home market' and 2) shape the context in which calls are made for the need to 'increase efficiency of agricultural production.' This in turn reflects the perception of agriculture in Jamaica as being backward, primitive, non-technological and in need of the advice of experts in order to bring it to the modern age. Although bauxite is obviously not an agricultural commodity, it is mentioned here as it contributes significantly to Jamaica's exports and therefore foreign exchange earnings, along with the familiar traditional agricultural export commodities of sugar, bananas, and to a lesser extent, coffee; when bauxite production declined dramatically in the 1980s, Jamaica faced a foreign exchange crisis that affected agriculture (Barclay and Girvan 2009).

Exports of sugar and bananas held fairly steady with minor fluctuations in the period

1960-1972, while bauxite production (nearly all of which was exported) increased steadily, more than doubling over the same period (Jamaica Department of Statistics 1973). This change largely reflects the postwar economic boom in the United States and the result of the newly independent

Jamaican government following an 'industrialization by invitation' strategy that encouraged operations from US corporations like Alcoa, Reynolds and Kaiser (Edie 1991; Payne 1995). The same period saw significant fluctuations in production of various vegetables, with some such as

'Irish' potatoes (the Jamaican term for white potatoes) showing little change over time, but with others such as tomatoes, onions, and carrots showing significant increases while production other

104 commodities such as peas/beans declined after independence in 1962 not approaching pre- independence levels again until 1978 (Jamaica Dept. of Statistics 1980).

Over the next seven years (1973-1979), bauxite production held fairly steady, wavering around an average 11.5 million long tons, but exports of the other main export earners, sugar and bananas, declined (Table 3.3), with drops in production of 18.6 percent and 11.7 percent respectively from 1978 to 1979 alone. During the same period, domestic production of vegetables continued to experience strong fluctuations; however, declines from the previous year occurred across the board. Production of peas/beans fell by 10.9 percent, tomatoes by 13.3 percent, sweet potatoes by 46 percent, and onions by 36.6 percent; production of carrots and Irish potatoes dropped in this year also, but by less than 4 percent each (Jamaica Dept. of Statistics

1980).

These overall numbers and year-to-year fluctuations can obscure broader patterns.

According to the World Bank (1982, cited in Rawlins 1983), total world agricultural output grew by 2.6% in the decade from 1960-1970, while agricultural output from developed countries grew by 2.8%; however, in the same period Jamaica's agricultural output grew by only 1.5 percent. In the following decade, world agricultural output expanded by 2.2 percent overall and the output from developed countries was 2.7 percent, while Jamaica's agricultural output grew by only 0.7 percent (World Bank 1982, cited in Rawlins 1983).

At least part of the cause for these figures stems from the imposition of Structural

Adjustment Policies (SAPs) mentioned in the previous chapter. After the election of Edward

Seaga's JLP in 1980, the Jamaican government took positions that were both far removed from

Michael Manley's previous championing of ‘democratic socialism’ and more closely aligned with the strongly neoliberalist agenda promoted by the Reagan administration in the US

105 (Edie1991; Payne 1995; Hintzen 2001). This change had significant impacts for much of the

Jamaican population, including smallholder farmers.

The imposition of SAPs, especially having to do with privatization and opening the

Jamaican market by ending protection of local producers, had several effects on farmers. First, the Jamaican government no longer sought to reduce import reliance or promote redistributive or cooperative land reform (Anderson and Witter 1994; Weis 2004; Teubal 2009). Second, the government's withdrawal from support and assistance programs created a void into which international development agencies and private sector actors stepped to support small-farm and food staple operations (Anderson and Witter 1994), often with their own agendas. Finally, the need under the SAP regime to improve balance of payments figures through exports led to a neglect of food staples and an increasing reliance on imported food supplies, especially from the

26 US (Kay 1995 ). Kay was writing here about the Latin American region as a whole, but the comments apply to Jamaica as well.

LeFranc (1994, 184-186) shows a series of figures demonstrating both acreage and output for several domestic food staples during the decade in which SAPs were enacted in Jamaica; the

27 various output totals were turned into a composite production index (Figure 3.1) Though acreage devoted to these crops is not shown, a 'best-fit' line of a composite for that would indicate an overall decline as well. Jamaica has not had a decline in population, nor have people in Jamaica begun eating less. The gap has been made up by food imports, which have also

26 Kay was writing here about the Latin American region as a whole, but the comments apply to Jamaica as well. 27 Amounts of each of the commodities varies widely, with one in the 3000-6000 ton range, another in the 20,000-50,000 ton range, and the other three in between. The quantities of each of the five example commodities was simply averaged for each year and this average was graphed; the resultant number for each year does not indicate a quantity of anything, but is merely represents a composite index. 106 benefited growers, distributors, and shippers in the social-majority world. At the same time that

SAPs were requiring countries like Jamaica to imports, the arguments of 'efficiency' and

28 Ricardian comparative advantage presented these changes as beneficial for all. Mies and Shiva

(1993) offered a statement by a former (unnamed) US Secretary of Agriculture that both encapsulated the modernist view and indicated the beneficiaries of such policies: developing countries could be better ensure food security through buying agricultural products from the

United States which could be produced at a lower cost; the idea of “developing countries feeding themselves is an anachronism from a bygone era” (Mies and Shiva 1993, 234).

18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91

Figure 3.1. Composite Production Index of Selected Domestic Food Staples (scallion, pumpkin, carrots, cabbage, red peas/beans), 1981-1991. After LeFranc (1994), Figures 4-8, 184-186.

28 Peet and Hartwick (2009) disassemble Ricardo's argument effectively (44-45). 107 The increase in the amount of imports has had another indirect impact. Several farmers whose comments appear in the next chapter mentioned the lack of various food processing facilities in Jamaica. As the introduction indicates, a driver can pass fields of tomatoes rotting in the sun for lack of buyers while cans of tomatoes bearing brands familiar in the US line the shelves; the town of Newell in the study area was known for many years as a center of peanut production but the markets carry Skippy, Jif, and Peter Pan peanut butter; even the Jamaican company Grace's offering is made in Trinidad. If one is in south St Elizabeth in late May, mangoes are so plentiful that one drives over piles of them on the road and hundreds collect on the ground beneath trees, yet I am told that Jamaica imports mango juice. Meanwhile, a feature of the American and European food industry is a steady stream of processed foods (see Section

3.2 above). The greater the amount of food imports from these social-minority countries' food industries, the less the opportunity to expand processing and value-adding operations, which could in turn supply local farmers with a domestic market (Bélisle 1983; Telfer and Wall 1996).

A snapshot of the agricultural situation in Jamaica as of this writing (2013) reveals one characterized by high levels of poverty and inequality. A report issued by the International

Monetary Fund in October of 2011 indicated that Jamaica had the second-highest Gini coefficient (59.9) of twenty-three regional countries surveyed; only Suriname's 61.6 Gini coefficient was higher (Jamaica Daily Gleaner 2011b). Two thirds of the agricultural land is held in less than 5 percent of farms, while 75 percent of farms are less than one hectare in size and 80 percent of the poorest quintile of the population lives in rural areas. (Weis 2006b; Jamaican

Agriculture Sub-Sector Strategy 2009). Just under 19 percent of the labor force is employed in agriculture, and not surprisingly, is the largest employer in rural areas (Jamaican Agriculture

Sub-Sector Strategy 2009). Between 2003 and 2010, production trends in agriculture all declined

108 (Figure 3.2).Imports remain an issue; they totalled US$479 million in 2002,US$662 million in late 2007, and reached over US$900 million in 2011 (Tufton 2008; Clarke 2012). Often these imports are less expensive than locally produced items due to 1) economies of scale available in larger countries like the US, 2) commonly externalized costs of large producers that help create these economies of scale, 3) direct and hidden subsidies (US dairy farmers' support of up to 130 percent of production cost at the turn of the century and petroleum company tax incentives provide one example of each), and 4) 'food aid' and dumping, for example of residual chicken parts (necks, backs, thighs) from US poultry producers who profit the most from breast meat

(Black 2003; Singh, Rankine, and Seepersad 2005). Despite the establishment of a program called 'Grow What We Eat/Eat What We Grow' by the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS) in

2003 (JAS 2008; Serju 2012), the 'basic food basket' of the Jamaican household contains at least

61 percent imports, according to a budget speech by then-Minister of Agriculture Christopher

Tufton in 2008.

While the 'Grow What We Eat/Eat What We Grow' campaign could not be characterized as a failure, the degree of its overall success is rather qualified. Government data do not show expansion of domestic agricultural production since its inception in 2003 (Figure 3.2). The dramatic fall in export crops shown in Figure 3.2 is attributable to the impact of hurricanes that year (mentioned in Chapter 4); bananas and sugar cane, along with citrus, are vulnerable because of their physical characteristics. The subsequent decline after the ‘bounce back’ cannot be associated with such specific occurrences, however. The broad ‘Other Agricultural Crops’ category is not described more specifically in the government report, but as the figure shows, it took seven years for this index category to reach the level it was the year of the program’s genesis.

109 Over the several years during which this research was conducted, the amounts of produce

29 in supermarkets labeled as either ‘Jamaican’ or ‘local’ increased. In some cases, the produce section was dominated by local/Jamaican items, with only a few imports – typically apples,

30 grapes, and plums along with a few vegetables. Some grocery stores/supermarkets were visited only once, but several others were surveyed over four consecutive summers and a few of these had expanded their carrying of local produce over that time period. In 2012, quantities of local produce found in several markets would rival many in the United States. Overall, I was impressed with what I saw, and attributed it to the success of the 2003 promotional campaign.

Several other factors need to be considered that mitigated that initial optimistic assessment, however.

The first was that what was available in supermarkets and grocery stores does not necessarily represent what is available to many Jamaicans. Supermarkets are not easily accessible to great numbers of people in Jamaica, located as they are in areas with a relatively high population density, a critical mass of local people with sufficient incomes, and access to

31 personal transportation. The threshold and range requirements preclude their locating in many areas of the country. To be sure, supermarkets exist in many towns and cities. Closest to the study area, the town of Junction (approximate population 4000) has two and Black River

(approximate population 5350) has one, a second having closed prior to my arrival in 2012. A

29 For the purposes of this study, a 'supermarket' will be defined as 'a retail establishment offering a variety of food and household goods for sale to consumers, with fresh, packaged/canned, and frozen produce and meat available for purchase, and having more than one cash register serving customers.' 30 Full 'supermarket survey' data can be found in Appendix C. 31 The same circumstances apply to US urban places such as Detroit, where major-chain supermarkets are a rarity. 110 supermarket found in a 'strip mall' in Mandeville (49,700) would be familiar to any suburban

American shopper, as would several found in New Kingston (population figures from Statistical

Institute of Jamaica 2012). Even a warehouse/club type of establishment with piles of Jamaican produce was found in Waterhouse, a commuter suburb of New Kingston.

Figure 3.2. Agriculture Production Index, 2003-2010 (2003=100) Source: Planning Institute 32 of Jamaica 2011

These types of locations are significant. Mandeville is described by many in Jamaica as a home to the upwardly-mobile and is very desirable due to the cool temperatures that result from

32 The data used for this figure included index categories of fisheries and livestock, which were excluded from the graph as being outside of the scope of this research. The line for ‘Total’ includes those data, however, so represents a broader survey of production than the graph, and pushed it upward from where it would be if only the three categories shown were included in the ‘Total.’ 111 its elevation. New Kingston, built due north and uphill from downtown, is home to embassies and consulates, multinational headquarters, and gated homes and communities. Parking lot access is often controlled by barriers and security guards. I did not see any supermarkets in my drives through downtown Kingston, where the poor shop in the area of the open Coronation

Market or in small shops (called 'mini-marts,' ubiquitous throughout the country) whose inventory of fresh items runs from few to none. Even in rather gritty Spanish Town, a fairly new spacious, flourescent lamp-lit, air conditioned supermarket with white-shirt-and-pressed-slacks- clad staff sits on the eastern edge of downtown on the road from Twickenham and Kingston. To enter the fenced-in (2.5 meters high) parking lot, one must pass the guard at the barrier.

As a result, it is likely that many of the mass of people walking on the crowded streets on the Friday afternoons I was there bought staples in other places. Many tiny shops sold canned food, rice, flour, cornmeal, and the like; sometimes these small establishments extended limited credit. Other 'wholesale' markets sold items in bulk for either home use or re-sale to consumers or at the ‘mini-marts.’ Fresh produce, when consumed, typically came from a combination of peddlers/higglers, open markets, backyard gardens. These options are the ones utilized by most rural people who make up 47.9 percent of the population (World Bank 2013) as well as the urban poor. The ‘Grow What We Eat/Eat What We Grow’ campaign seems to be having the greatest impact on middle- and upper-middle class Jamaicans who can access the venues where it is sold, while the poor buy many canned and processed foods.

Initially, these surveys only tallied items in the ‘fresh produce’ sections of supermarkets.

However, this only told part of the story. Examining labels on cans and packages proved enlightening. Major stores carried brands from major producers in the US, which based upon the discussion of 'respectability' above may attract purchasers based on the status of imports. Even

112 33 brands from Jamaican (and Trinidadian) companies often contained foods that came from abroad. Canned vegetables were from the US or Canada (depending on the brand), rice was from the US or St Vincent, soybean-based cooking oil indicated 'packed for' a Jamaican company (but

Jamaica does not produce soybeans), coconut oil was from Thailand, coconut milk, both powder and canned (common in Jamaican cooking) was from Thailand, Malaysia, or Sri Lanka. Flour was listed as ‘Product of Jamaica,’ though Jamaica grows no wheat. Three brands of corn meal were common in several supermarkets: one was ‘Product of Jamaica,’ one did not have the origin labeled, and the other from Barbados. Tinned corned beef, a meat product widely consumed by

Jamaicans because of its low cost and nonperishability in households without refrigerators, was from Brazil and Argentina. Condiments like ketchup were listed as ‘Made in Jamaica’ but did not have the origins of the tomato base listed; several attempts to contact the companies to inquire about this yielded no results.

Therefore, despite some outward success of the campaign to increase consumption of locally produced food, overall levels of imports remain high. Minister of Agriculture Clarke said in a 2012 speech that based on “a close examination of our import bill...we can in fact produce two thirds of the quantum of foods we import” (1). He did not provide any further support for this assessment, but the data above indicate the lack of viable food processing operations, discussed earlier in the chapter, could be a useful point to address.

3.4. Conclusion

33 Aside from the Grace brand of major Jamaican retailer GraceKennedy, others were Eve, Facey, Geddes, and Lasco. Even when labels on cans from these brands indicated the contents were 'Product of Jamaica,' my companion refused to believe it. 113 This chapter traced the agricultural history of Jamaica, from the days as a sugar colony through independence and to contemporary times. The experiences of the sugar-dominated plantation economy and the social systems that descended from it continue to shape the character of Jamaican agriculture. Plantation provision grounds led to the emergence of a Jamaican protopeasantry, but the persistence of metropolitan association with ‘superiority’ continued to drive imports of food and limit the growth of domestic food production. The colonial orientation towards export agriculture was maintained after independence, which led to a dualism in

Jamaican agriculture with investment, extension, and support for exports while producers of food staples were largely left to fend for themselves.

Despite programs and campaigns to the contrary, imports of food to Jamaica, primarily but not exclusively from the United States, continue to rise, and will likely pass one billion dollars soon, if they have not already, in a country of under three million people. Many fresh produce items from Jamaica are available in supermarkets, but these are mostly accessible to the segments of Jamaican society that are best off in terms of income, and who therefore may be more likely to seek the 'status markers' of imported foods. The food most available to the majority of Jamaicans often still comes from abroad.

This chapter then provided the background for the agricultural context within which farmers in south St Elizabeth work. That work, and its outcomes and products – both plant-based and discursive – will become the focus of the next chapters of this dissertation.

114 CHAPTER 4 THE VIEW FROM THE GROUND: WHAT FARMERS SAY ABOUT AGRICULTURE

4.1. Introduction

Two points must be noted in advance of the following sections. The first one is brief: a few Jamaican variations on commonly used names for well known crops need to be explained.

The Jamaican name for scallion/escallion/green onion (Allium fistulosum) is ‘skellion,’ with the same term used for both singular and plural. Jamaicans use the compound term ‘beetroot’ (Beta vulgaris) to describe what in Canada, the US, and Europe are just called ‘table beets,’ ‘garden beets,’ or simply ‘beets.’

The second point reflects the methodological challenges involved in conducting research in cross-linguistic settings, and especially in reproducing passages that attempt to represent personal voices from interviews in Jamaica. These challenges are exacerbated when interviewees come from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds and the linguistic context involves a clear sociolect. As a 1) white American who is 2) working on an advanced degree, and therefore 3) able to travel abroad to 4) conduct research among local people, nearly any conversation I might have with a smallholder Jamaican farmer takes place within an imbricated set of power relations, not the least of which has to do with language.

While English is the language with 'official' status in Jamaica, everyday communication by the majority of the people in the country is conducted within a different linguistic 'code.'

Known as patois/patwa, Quashie, or Jamaican Creole (JC), this speech pattern has come under great scrutiny in recent decades. Once scorned as a ‘debased’ or ‘broken’ version of standard

English, JC has become far more accepted as a marker of Jamaican self-identity, and celebrated as an expression of this (Adams 1991; Cassidy 2007 [1971]; Bryan 2010); Cooper (2004) refers to the use of JC as an aspect of understanding the multiple ‘border clashes’ that she says

115 characterize contemporary Jamaica as a place of many ‘spaces-between-worlds.’ The country's two main newspapers, the Daily Gleaner and The Observer, regularly include quotes in JC whenever they are used by speakers. The prevailing view is that JC is in fact a language, one used as the primary means of communication by the overwhelming majority of Jamaicans.

Although it may be more widely accepted, use of JC without the ability to ‘code-shift’ is still frequently seen as an indication of low socioeconomic status and education level, however.

Nearly all Jamaicans understand appropriate (that is, non-jargon) American or British

English without difficulty. As a white American of comparatively high educational attainment, my use of JC in interviews would likely have been seen as inappropriate or ‘posing,’ and might well have been offensive to those with whom I was speaking. As a result, all interviews were conducted by my speaking in the manner of English I would normally use in non-specialized or

1 academic settings. In addition, if the interviewee utilized JC in her/his pre-interview conversation with me, I employed some common JC phrases or expressions as a way to increase levels of comfort, but otherwise spoke as I normally would. I am fairly comfortable in understanding JC, and interviewees responded using the linguistic form they would normally employ. If I did not understand a particular pronunciation or phrasing, I received assistance afterwards from a research assistant, with whom I have worked closely over the time of this project.

In the passages that follow, I treat JC as a language rather than a 'nonstandard' form of

English, and provide English translations of what informants have said. I do this even though

1 Of course, this varied with the person being interviewed. For interviewees who were themselves academics or whose position indicated a tertiary or post-graduate level of education or specialization, more specialized and/or technical English vocabulary was employed, as would be the case in any spoken communication setting.

116 two good possible orthographic systems could be employed to represent more exactly what people have told me: one of these contains clear variants of English words indicated by pronunciation while the other is a more directly phonetic rendering of speech that treats JC as a more distinct and African-based language (Adams 1991). My justification for this 'standardizing' what interviewees shared with me follows two lines. First, as indicated above, stronger use of JC often indicates socioeconomic and educational status, and I do not want to frame the various people who were generous enough to share their time and knowledge with me as belonging to one or another group. Second, shifting among multiple 'degrees' of JC, from total to barely extant

– this latter category being essentially English spoken with a distinct Jamaican pronunciation, rather like one would hear from a person from Scotland, Wales, or Australia – could be confusing to the reader. Finally, several interviewees did not give permission to record our conversations, which required me to write notes at their conclusion based on recollections of overall perceptions, some paraphrasing what was said, and some direct quotations. These last were recorded as clearly as I could recall, but as I am not as comfortable speaking JC as I am in understanding it, I wanted to avoid projecting my own imperfect JC phrasing after the fact onto what the person said. In the passages that follow, anything indicated as a quote is transcribed exactly as was said, translated into a 'majority-comprehensible' English; specific JC idiomatic phrases are included with translations immediately following in parentheses. By proceeding in this fashion - perhaps contradictorily – I believe I am treating JC with the status of its own language and not as some imperfect and lower form of another one. In order to protect

2 confidentiality, all farmers' names are pseudonyms.

2 In the interview excerpts that follow, anything appearing in double quotation marks or block formatting is a direct quote taken from the transcript of the interview recording. Phrases or statements set off in single quotation marks are quotes from recorded or written 117

4.2. Common themes emerging from farmer interviews

Fifty-one interviews with forty different participants were conducted as part of this project; several people were interviewed multiple times (maximum of three) over the course of the research. Thirty of the interview participants were farmers; the remainder were people who headed NGOs, worked for the government extension arm, the Rural Agricultural Development

Authority (RADA), worked in private sector agro-processing or agro-chemical distribution, or were involved in the tourism sector. The following section relates four themes that commonly were indicated by farmers themselves as representing problems or challenges they face.

Theme 1. Mistrust of the government or other power structures.

A 2011 World Bank report indicated that a high level of mistrust between people and the government – as well as on an interpersonal level – presented both social and economic challenges for Jamaica (Mustafaoglu 2011). This is borne out in many comments made by farmers. A commonly held perception by farmers is that the government does not provide enough

(or any) assistance to small farmers. The government is at best viewed as impotent in this regard, or at worst, is framed as actively working in the interests of officials or on behalf of others to the detriment of smallholders. A representation of the former postition was made by one farmer who at the time of the interview (2009) was growing cantaloupe for market. When asked about his thoughts about changes in the amount of land being farmed in the area over the past decade or so, he responded, ‘It decrease. You know if the Jamaica government need to borrow money or

notes made immediately after the conversation occurred, and are primarily the result of the interviewee not wanting a recording to be made of the interview. These are used for exact reproductions of what the interviewee said. Phrases or passages attributed to interviewees without any quotation markings reflect paraphrases of passages from non-recorded interviews or notes made after some time had passed. 118 something like that, dem hav fi (they have to) open up the market to products come from a foreign (abroad)...so it come with strings attached.’ Similar if slightly stronger sentiments expressed by two other farmers follow a similar track, with one saying “the government doesn't reach out enough to small farmers,” and another declaring vociferously, ‘we get no help from the government...a few years ago, a storm came through and washed everything away, and the

3 government did not give us one dollar to try and rebuild.’

Soljah (Soldier), a farmer who has been practicing both organic and non-organic farming intermittently over the past few years, spoke of the lack of support for organic methods by the extension arm of the Agriculture ministry, RADA. He said,

I ask them. Sometimes...I hear about organic shows, when I ask the extension officer, they have heard nothing about it. They don't know anything about it. So, it is just individual people [trying to do it on their own]. Government is not promoting organic at all, RADA is not promoting, and they have nothing to do with organic. Because all the time when I ask them if they hear about the program, they say no.But whenever anybody come into the island and ask about 'who in the parish do organic?' they call me!

Aside from the perceived disinterest or inactivity on the part of the government, one interviewee spoke in terms that were more specific about what it could be doing. This person had been an organic farmer, but one who did not produce for sale; rather he grew things for himself, his family, and friends. In an early June conversation in 2010, he said:

The government is deficient in assistance to farmers…not necessarily technical, but informational. There is a glut of melons right now, even though this should be a good season for tomatoes. Why? Melons seem like a good idea because people are buying them, so everybody plants them…and ‘cut their own throat’ in terms of

3 The storm identified by this farmer could have been Hurricane Dean in 2007, which caused severe damage to the agricultural sector and overall island infrastructure (Government of Jamaica 2007). Alternatively, it could have been Hurricane Lili, which struck in late September of 2002 and triggered significant mudslides in several places and had been preceded by Hurricane Isidore just a few weeks earlier. Several farmers identified the hurricanes of 2002 as a marker of the onset of 'hard times' for smallholder agriculturalists in the area. 119 selling price. Melons grow better here in the Plains, skellion and carrot grow better in the hills…so why are the people in the hills trying to grow melons? The small farmers [as dispersed poor people operating on their own] don’t know what’s happening a little further away than their neighbors. I don’t know what’s going on in Portland [parish, in NE of country]…but the government should know! And communicate that…Portland farmers can grow their banana, we grow our onion and melon…and have some kind of coordination [Jamaica is only the size of Massachusetts].

Reflecting the role political clientelism plays in Jamaican life (see Ch. 2), other farmers' complaints were reflected in statements like, “sometimes they [the government] give away free seed, but they give it to who they want to give it to,” “the only time the government notices us is when they want our votes at election time,” or, “I vote for them. I do this for them, and I don't get nothing.” One farmer, who has been interviewed several times over the course of this project, spoke of the government’s promotion of a ‘protected agriculture’ sector; this term refers to greenhouse production. He told me that the people who received the grants from RADA were often people who had little or no experience farming, but were “lawyer, accountant, run a hardware store…[they] planted nothing! Everybody plant tomato, sweet pepper…I’m serious about it, mon! Guys who are millionaires who have dollars to run the show, the government go to them and say, ‘come and run this greenhouse and I will give you the money’ [for it].”

In a similar vein, two brothers who were interviewed in 2011 said that government programs did not reach all communities evenly, even within the same general area. Specifically regarding a significant government program to bring irrigation water to the area – an important thing, given its relative dryness – they said that not all communities had equal access:

You're speaking of the government? They can contribute more. Because most of your people in your community rely on farming, so they need to fix the water system...after they get in, you forget about the people. [The irrigation scheme is] just down below. Everybody rely on farming, you know...I mean, come on, this is a community. You know, it's not a big population, but these are your people. It's like you turn your back on your people...you need water, so give the people water...so if you don't fix the water on this portion, but you got water on that

120 portion, it mean one side of your people succeed all the time, and the other side be perishing.

In addition, these two men indicated that there were ongoing problems of upkeep and maintenance with aspects of the water system that were in place: “…the water is there. But then, they don’t look back at it…they could’ve come back…it’s broken, but they ain’t return to fix it. I don’t know why they neglect it.” This particular parliamentary district, St Elizabeth South

Western, was won in the 2007 elections by the candidate of the ruling JLP, Christopher Tufton, who received 55 percent of votes cast. At the time, Dr. Tufton4 also held the position of Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, giving this project a direct link to his own power and ability to

'deliver' to his constituency. The other side of this coin, however, is that 45 percent of the voters who cast ballots did not vote for him. At present, data on vote totals disaggregated by local polling district are not available, but it is well established by both common understanding and local displays of visual symbols that different communities maintain different party identities.

Lack of hard evidence of clientelism's role in extending the irrigation system notwithstanding, the perception of its existence is a factor in shaping farmers' views on the operations of state power.

Some farmers go beyond ascribing to the government impotence, a sense of neglect

(benign or otherwise), or simply the act of rewarding those who support them. Several interviews

4 Tufton received a Doctorate in Business Administration from Manchester University in the UK, along with a Master's degree in Marketing from Georgia State University and a Master's degree in Management Studies from the University of the West Indies. His background, therefore, in both agriculture and fishing is rather limited. Despite this, he was generally regarded as an effective Minister, even by some supporters of the opposition PNP. Just weeks before this interview was conducted, his portfolio had shifted to Minister of Industry, Investment, and Commerce and he was replaced in Agriculture by Robert Montague. In a general island-wide swing in favor of the PNP in the elections of December 2011, Tufton lost his Parliamentary seat for St Elizabeth South Western to the PNP candidate, Hugh Buchanan, son of the MP whom Tufton defeated in 2007, by only thirteen votes (Jamaica Daily Gleaner 2011). 121 indicated a belief that members of the government had close ties to people who own or control import concessions for food or agrochemicals. One man, expressing exasperation, said, “all the time, mi (I) hear what the government say them do (they are doing) for the small farmers, but mi no see nothing them do! Them just keep importing food…well, mi think it that they’re friends get an importing license, then, and make money…it must help their friends. All the politician just help one another, and no help the people.”

The perception by farmers of malevolent collusion by ‘higher ups’ for personal gain is not restricted to the government. For example, at the 2011 annual agricultural show at Denbigh

(near May Pen in Clarendon), a man at a booth featuring an organic kelp-based plant food was asked why this sort of product did not catch on more. His response was, “People with the money are not behind it. They're all tied in with the chemical companies.”

Even more extreme suspicions of malfeasance aimed at 'keeping the small man down' have been uncovered during interviews. In the summer of 2012, many localities around the study area were suffering from an infestation of a voracious pest called the beet armyworm

(Spodoptera exigua, Fig. 4.1), which despite its 'specific target' name, attacks a variety of crops. I observed extensive evidence of damage; in one case, an entire field of skellion plants looked like they had been cut three or four centimeters above the ground with a 'weed whacker'-type device.

One farmer told me they had wiped out his entire crop of onions, of which I saw remains (Fig.

4.2). In the course of our conversation, this farmer indicated that he thought that the presence of these worms that destroyed his onion crop and were widespread in several communities were in

Jamaica intentionally as a result of bioengineering on the part of the seed companies.

I’m telling these people and they not listening. The worm is not...I don’t figure these worms endemic to this area...[no one ever sees the moths that lay the eggs] but the worms only come up when you plant onions, why? ...When you plant it’s like the worms don’t come in the ground until the onions start to bud...But

122 anytime you startthe flower blooms the worms attack it. I am telling everybody, and the RADA people not listening, it’s a bio-engineering...Jamaica is going to produce less onions. Now if Jamaica produces less onions it will not affect the world market...We would still have to import and we won't have anything to export. But anytime you like you go and you order two thousand tin (of seeds) you going to produce too much metric tonne, you’re going to affect the world market, they are going to stop you. Because it’s Bonanza, it’s Agri-nova or it’s...Amsa [all seed brands]. Those are the three brands that we use. They come from abroad [the U.S.]...all of them know now that this amount will be going to Jamaica this year, so they going to give us what they want to give us, they’re going to put in the bad ones with the good ones. Now I don’t have any money...I don’t have anything and I don’t see the worms anymore, the worms disappeared. Where have they gone, they died, have they stop reproduce? This is the questions I asked...what has happened to the worms now?

Figure 4.1. Beet armyworms on scallion plants, Round Hill. June 2012. Photo by the author.

This farmer was not the only person holding to this particular line of accusation. About a week after this conversation, I picked up a pedestrian who asked at a stop sign for a ride up the road, as is common in Jamaica. He had the dreadlocks and matted beard common among serious

123 Rastafarians, and smelled strongly of ganja. Being polite and outgoing, he engaged in conversation which turned to the topic of the infestation after we passed a field and he asked if I knew about it. I asked where he though they came from, and he replied immediately that they were ‘engineered into the seeds and sprays.’ An itinerant vegetable peddler who frequents the yard where I stay echoed the same thing. A well-known figure, he travels on foot throughout the area, either trading ganja with people for produce or just taking donations from people's fields or gardens to make a meager living from peddling to households. As a result, he engages in a lot of

Figure 4.2. Onions destroyed by beet armyworms near Pedro Cross. May 2012. Photo by the author.

124 conversation with people who produce vegetables. I was telling him one morning about the field of skellion mentioned above that looked as if it had been mown down. His response was also quick and direct: ‘the spray bring them.’

In addition to this belief that the pests are ‘engineered’ into the inputs, several interviews in 2012 revealed a belief in or perception of seed quality being manipulated by the companies that distribute them, to the detriment of Jamaican smallholders. This emerged in a conversation with one farmer who was asked what differences he noticed between farming now and when his parents were farming. One of the things he noticed, he said, was that ‘the seed is not as strong…it can’t take different kinds of weather…the high winds or heavy rains. And they don’t bear as well…one kind of seed will bear for a couple of years, and then it disappears; it’s gone from the market.’ He referred to a particular cucumber variety that he claimed was a favorite among many farmers that was not available after two years of great yield. He felt that the seed companies were responsible, since ‘all the seed is imported, and we are at the mercy of what is available to buy.’ Another farmer elaborated:

No one expects it be easy, but advantage taken by the seed, like Agro-grace and those people [take] advantage of you. They will bring in the seed, and the seed is good. You plant the seed and you get a good crop. Two crop down the line you plant the same seed, the same condition or sometime better condition, and it doesn’t produce anything. So these…people, suppliers of the seed are giving up what you would call low-quality seeds…When they introduce it to the market, you know it’s high quality, but then, I don’t know…you will plant the melon and they don’t bear, and it has nothing to do with the time [of planting] because it bush right up properly and all…so when you see that, it’s the seed…And you can’t go somewhere else.

Theme 2. Problems with marketing.

Another common problem farmers mention has to do with the manner in which their produce is bought and sold. The marketing and distribution system in Jamaica disadvantages

125 smallholders in the study area, as well as other rural parts of Jamaica. Many of these smallholders are dispersed in areas of rugged terrain and roads in bad condition (Figure 4.3). The vast majority ofthese farmers do not own a vehicle, and rely for personal transportation either on rare friends or neighbors who own a vehicle or more commonly on the ubiquitous 'route taxis' that convey passengers from one population cluster to another rather inexpensively. These automobiles are often Toyota Corollas or similar-sized vehicles, and frequently carry multiple passengers, making them poor conduits for bringing loads of produce from small farms to distributors or markets. In addition, the produce needs to be brought from the fields to the towns, store clusters, or crossroads where the route taxis gather and that serve as transfer points.

Throughout the country, most smallholders rely on more or less informal ‘middlemen’ or petty traders known as ‘higglers’ to purchase their produce and then pass it on, either directly to

Figure 4.3. Roads damaged by 2002 and 2007 hurricanes, Round Hill area. May 2010. Photos by the author.

end consumers or as intermediaries for others who do so. Mintz (1955) described them as “filling nearly every role in the marketing process” (98), consuming some of the produce they buy themselves, selling some to consumers, and selling some to other higglers who access other 126 market outlets, all the way up to exporters (Figure 4.4). The term originated in England and appears in Fielding’s Tom Jones, but was originally linked in the Caribbean to women slaves selling surpluses in Sunday markets (Wong 1996). The practice of higglering historically has been and is still widely associated with women (Mintz 1955; Katzin 1959, 1960; Norton and

Symanski 1975; Rao 1990; Wong 1996) but the gendered nature of the activity is increasingly

5 less the case. This system is often maligned by many parties – farmers, development advisors and other experts, extension agents – as inefficient and therefore costly. Nonetheless, it provides a way for produce to get from growers to consumers in an economic and infrastructural environment that does not offer many other options, and although no interviewees for this project mentioned it, in some cases higglers extend credit based on future crops, acting almost as small bankers to farmers they have known for some time (Babb et al. 1983; Clarke 2011).

As was the case regarding attitudes towards the government, farmers perceive their relationships with higglers along a continuum. Some higglers buy regularly from the same farmers, and appear to have a fairly solid business relationship, while one older farmer simply said, “Listen to me now. Di higglah teef.” (‘the higglers are thieves’ or ‘higglers steal’). Even with this continuum, nearly all the farmers with whom I spoke had some complaints about this higgler/petty trader/middleman system.

One complaint is that sometimes higglers are not dependable buyers. An experienced farmer brought me to a large shed on his property and showed me a large pile of watermelons and another of pumpkins with some honeydew scattered in as well, telling me that this was what he

5 Over the past four annual visits to the study area and other parts of the island as part of this research, I have observed what appears to be a broadly gendered division of labor among higglers. Women are frequently seen at the point of consumer interactions in open-air markets such as those in Christiana or Black River selling produce, while men purchase and collect the produce from the farmers. More research would be needed to claim this rather informal observation as a true pattern. 127 could not sell (Figure 4.5). I asked, somewhat incredulously (the amount of produce was significant), “you can’t sell this?” He responded, “You tryin’ to, but you don’t know when anybody comes. Some come for a hundred pounds, some fifty, some two hundred…you

Figure 4.4. Higgler vendors, Great Bay, St Elizabeth. July 2011. This particular couple follows a route that collects produce from a particular group of farmers two days a week, and then takes another route the following day to the yards of regular customers, selling out of the back of their small station wagon. They also stop at a few locations to sell to passersby, but pick these so as to avoid competing directly with local shops. Many customers in this area are fairly well-off by Jamaican standards. Photo by the author.

never know when you get it sell (get it sold).” Another farmer told me that “sometimes in

Jamaica, you plant a crop, and then you have to hunt for a buyer. You have to go out on the road and hunt for a buyer.”

The reason for this problem is often straightforward: the higglers are trying to maximize what they can make on each sale of their own, and so try to buy as cheaply as they can. They

128 often can do so most effectively by not maintaining a regular agreement with particular farmers, but by trying to find farmers willing to under-bid other ones. As one senior farmer said, if they can get it cheaper somewhere else, they will.

Figure 4.5. Waiting for the higglers, Little Park. July 2011. Photo by the author.

Though reliance on higglers as a marketing and distribution mechanism has a long history in Jamaica, a few older farmers can remember government initiatives to reduce some of the issues involved in this reliance. In 1963, the year after independence, the Jamaican government established the Agricultural Marketing Corporation (AMC) as a “way to ‘modernize’ its internal marketing system” (Erickson and Erickson 1980). This entity had multiple purposes, chief of which were to simultaneously support farm prices and provide low-cost food for the poor through direct buying and distribution, but suffered from a large bureaucracy, high turnover of key decision-makers, and costs associated with infrastructure maintenance; as a result it never handled more than a small fraction of the country’s produce. (Lagra 1979; Erickson and Erickson

1980). However, the AMC did help to stabilize farm prices during the shocks of the 1970s, when 129 the oil crises had major impacts on small islands like Jamaica (that are dependent on virtually all fuel imports) and the country was on the brink of civil war; nonetheless it was dismantled in the

6 1980s (Babb et al. 1983; Weis 2006b).

Two farmers, one in his late 60s and one in his late 50s, both remember some of the advantages that the AMC provided small farmers in the area. The former, telling me that they did not have to rely as much on higglers, said, “At those times, the AMC used to come...and buy it…even if the price was low, it cut out the big man. You still get a [decent price], them have fi

(had to) buy it, you understand?” I was asking the latter about how widely the higglers took his produce to sell it, and he said, “some time ago in the 1970s, they had a corporation where they used to buy, like corporation would buy it, and distribute it through Kingston and the various areas. But that was then…not anymore.” Reflecting the widespread understanding of neoliberal ideologies, he added, “Government don’t really enter into a business itself anymore.”

Even though the AMC is long gone, people have recommended something along similar lines as a way to assist smallholders with some of the challenges they face in marketing. When asked what might make the marketing system better, one farmer was nearly calling for its resurrection saying, “Well, if the government set up a 'buying center' where [they] go in and control the market, it probably would be better. The government give you a fixed price, and then the government sell back to the consumer, to the hotel.” Advocating for a less direct approach,

Soljah talked about a system similar to that of the 'Ever-normal granary' system of the United

6 This was carried out by the administration of Edward Seaga, whose JLP came to victory in a landslide after the violent elections of 1980. This election involved, at the very least, indirect participation by the US in creating instability that helped turn voters away from Michael Manley's 'Democratic Socialism' and close relations with Cuba; this in turn led to graffiti appearing that referred to the Boston-born politician as 'CIAga.' Dismantling the AMC was the result of both Seaga's enthusiastic support of Ronald Reagan and the Reaganist valorization of privatization and free-market operations and the SAPs that resulted from the onset of the 'Third World Debt Crisis' that was linked to the oil crises of the mid/late 1970s. 130 States that effectively regulated grain supplies until it was dismantled during the 'fencerow to fencerow' agricultural policies of the 1970s and 80s (Pollan 2006). In a discussion regarding some recent statements by the Minister of Agriculture, Soljah said in July of 2011,

He [the Minister] is supposed to structure the system so good with a way out where, you have for instance, a storage area...when it become(s) available, farmers can be able to store their things until they are ready to let it off (put it on the market for sale)...so if there was a glut, you could have stored an amount [to be let off later]. If you are to store anything, maybe the farmer will have to pay a fee for storage. [Referring to the protected agriculture systems allegedly given to political cronies, he said their produce hits the market, and] ...all of a sudden they never get them things sell. So they open a... 'Farmer's Market' now, competing with the local market...it's not the farmers but the higglers that are going there...the produce at the Farmer's Market is sold to get rid of the glut in the system. The glut is no longer in the system but the Farmer's Market is still running! It defeat(s) the purpose! And I have no money, I make no money from October last year.

Approximately nine weeks prior to this conversation, the former Minister of Agriculture

7 under the previous PNP administration, Roger Clarke (2011), wrote a guest commentary in the

Jamaica Daily Gleaner that echoed some of Soljah's concerns:

...we now see our farmers being trucked to these improvised [farmer's] markets to virtually compete among themselves for the disposal of their crops. When... supermarket owners [who are trying to establish local connections] buy products from the farmers, package and prepare for sale, and then realise there is a farmers' market next door competing against them and they cannot dispose of the produce, and spoilage takes place, that is the end of that relationship. Then there are also [higglers] who go to the farmers' markets, buy at knockdown prices, and return to the formal market to sell. In this business of marketing perishable agricultural products, the Government must understand its role and decide whether it is going to pursue an Agricultural Marketing Corporation-type operation or play a coordinating role in terms of information and logistics.

The challenges of the Jamaican marketing system for small farmers present difficulties for the Jamaican government, particularly when combined with neoliberal political-economic ideologies so currently dominant in visions of the global economy. This is perhaps especially the

7 Clarke resumed his prior post as Minister of Agriculture after the PNP electoral victory in December 2011. 131 case for the more conservative JLP, which has more broadly embraced the neoliberal ideology of

8 free-market efficiency and highly constrained public sector economic participation. In early July

2011, to much fanfare, the Caribbean foods company GraceKennedy opened a new post- harvesting and distribution center in Hounslow, a community in the northwestern part of the study area (Fig. 4.6, 4.7). GraceKennedy describes itself as “One of the Caribbean’s largest and most dynamic corporate entities…the GraceKennedy group comprises a varied network of some

60 subsidiaries and associated companies located across the Caribbean and in North and Central

America and the UK. Our operations span the areas of food processing and distribution, banking and finance, insurance and remittance services, together with an investment in building materials retailing” (GraceKennedy Group Company Profile n.d.). The leading line of the Jamaica

Observer story covering the event presented it strictly as a boon to farmers: “GraceKennedy last

Friday opened its post-harvest and packaging facility in Hounslow, St Elizabeth, making way for farmers to secure a ready and reliable market for their produce” (Jamaica Observer 2011, emphasis mine). In an interview a few weeks later, the facility’s field operations manager (FOM) took the same approach:

Well, it came about with a study the Ministry of Agriculture did which showed we were importing a lot of vegetables and peppers, and pepper mash [used for sauces and condiments] coming into Jamaica. And this study showed there was good potential to do import substitution. And so that’s where this project basically came into effect…GraceKennedy saw this as an opportunity…not only to make some profits, but also to support the small farmers, who over the years have had problems marketing their things. And GraceKennedy’s strength is really in distribution and marketing. So we will be able now to buy farmers’…produce, and provide a consistent income to them…and so now, those farmers have been able to plan their livelihood, their experiences…

8 To be fair, the PLP currently operates within a solidly neoliberal world-view as well, reflecting this ideology's 'naturalization' over the past decades. Once the bête noire of the United States for his close association with Fidel Castro and promotion of Third World causes, when Michael Manley and the PNP returned to power in 1989, his administration followed a path that was a far cry from the 'democratic socialism' he presented in the 1970s. 132

The farmers in the study area with whom I spoke in the aftermath of the facility's opening did not view the situation in the same light as the newspaper or the FOM, however, and instead focus on the profit motive that is downplayed in the official descriptions. One farmer who was talking about the low prices that produce fetches brought the topic up himself, saying, “that place try to buy a lot cheaper – the Hounslow agricultural thing – but it cannot work out at the price they pay you...it's a waste of money. They say they're going to buy some of the stuff...but the price? No, it can't work out. I don't even join them.”

Figure 4.6. GraceKennedy Post-harvest and packaging plant, Hounslow. July 2011. Photo by the author.

133

Figure 4.7. GraceKennedy Post-harvest and packaging plant, Hounslow. July 2011. Photo by the author ( NOTE: Text in image does not meet size standards for reproduction; bottom of sign on right indicates funding from Canada and the IICA. Other text is not intended to be legible; photograph is for visual reference only).

The reason for this reluctance or refusal to take part has to do with how the ‘ready and reliable market’ and ‘consistent income’ actually work. The approach of the pricing scheme, providing a constant price to smooth out the volatility of the market presented as favoring the farmers. When interviewing the FOM of the facility in 2011, I mentioned that several farmers had indicated skepticism regarding their ability to thrive on the program due to what they were paid for their produce. He responded,

Yes. Right. Because…what we do, is we are adding value to a commodity, and that involves cost…because there is such a fluctuation in supply, it creates periods when there is high prices. Now our farmers, they are price-sensitive; they know price…they’re not doing it on a large scale, and they’re really not doing all the economic practices properly. And so…their yields are not where they’re supposed to be. And the only way to compensate for yields is through price…what we offer farmers is a price that is based on the cost of production [plus a markup]…I tell you something: there are times when the price we offer them, that price is much higher than…the market price. When there’s a good supply in the market. Skellion…we buy skellion for thirty five Jamaican dollars a pound [on the day of this interview, about US$0.40], right? And you can go out in the field and buy skellion for seven dollars a pound [US$0.08]! And at the time we were offering them twenty five dollars a pound, skellion was selling [on the market] for forty 134 five dollars a pound! And some farmers said, ‘no, we’ll take it out, because we can get forty-five dollars a pound’…culturally …you’ll hear a lot of talk about ‘catch a crop.’ It’s a term they use, because [they hope to] time the crop, so that they know they get a high price, rather than a price they can live by.

Farmers who participate in this program go through a rating and evaluation system to qualify for entry. The FOM is responsible for conducting these interviews and examining the farmers’ operations (amount of land under cultivation, quality of soils, access to credit and financing, type of irrigation system, etc.) in order to determine whether or not the farmer would be a good candidate for participation. If they enter the program, they are contracted to deliver a given

9 quantity of a particular produce commodity per week to the facility. Participating farmers need to have or arrange their own means of transporting their produce to Hounslow, where it is sorted, washed, packaged, and stored in refrigerated chilling rooms until distributed upwards in the commodity chain. Containers of produce from each participating farmer are marked with a code,

10 making it possible to maintain quality control and traceability.

Remarking on this ‘cost-plus’ basis of pricing for farmers, Soljah was another who felt it was not worth his while to participate and had doubts about their approach. After being asked his thoughts about the facility and the program, he offered a lengthy discussion of the reasons why he did not want to participate:

[T]he price that they set, they organize to buy at, cannot work. Cabbage is eighty dollars a pound [‘in the field,’ meaning that’s what it cost him to grow it. The amount represents US$0.93 at the July 2011 exchange rate], they want to buy cabbage at twenty dollars a pound [US$0.23] and it is eighty now on the field! [Question: Who is to blame for that?] The Minister of Agriculture, with GraceKennedy…I see no possibility of it working because of the price they want

9 Although most of the produce comes from St Elizabeth, some comes from as far away as the parish of St Mary in the northeast part of the country, a journey that could easily be in excess of three hours. 10 I was given a private tour through the facility following my interview, but as is typical of commercial production operations, was not allowed to take pictures. 135 to give you…and the worst part is you have to carry it down there. So if you carry five thousand pound a carrot go down there, you have to wait until they have selected them and then call you back for the rejection…you know the heat that is down there? You carry a thousand pound lettuce go down there and they take what they want. And you have to go for the rejection…what do you do with it? …it wilt and then it is useless [due to the ride in the heat of the back of a pickup in the tropical sun]…they are…trying to take over the supply line, the hotels and the big supermarket chain…so our little men who usually do the little delivery…they want to cut them out. Because there is a big turn up profit within it, so they are giving us thirty dollars a pound for carrot, right? You still have to wait two weeks to get your money and also have to carry it, go there for them to select it…and then they call you: ‘all right sir, can you come back for them [the rejects]?’ Three hundred pound [of what you brought there] is not good…the size might not be right. They are too little. Some of them have a green tip, right? …maybe one have a little blemish on it...Carrot just rotten in a field. I have two acres of carrot…so when carrot is selling for fifteen and ten dollars a pound [US$0.17-$0.12], I couldn’t pull it. Man pull it for fifteen hundred dollars a day…it cannot work out. You pull a thousand pound and you get fifteen thousand for it. And you…have five men to hire, so ten thousand dollars to cover your overhead…five thousand dollars cannot work out so most person will just leave it in the field.

Despite the framing of this project as aimed at easing small farmers' problems, benefits seem to have certainly accrued to GraceKennedy. The opening of the post-harvest and packing facility has coincided with an upturn in financial results for the company. According to its 2011

Annual Report, profits rose by 22.2 percent with revenue growth driven by the Grace Foods

Division (GraceKennedy 2012), compared to a more than ten percent decline in overall profits in

2010, with a revenue drop in the Foods Division of over thirty percent in what was termed “a very challenging year” (GraceKennedy 2011, 11). In November 2012, the Gleaner reported that

GraceKennedy Group revenues overall were 5.2 percent higher from January through September than the corresponding period of the previous year, and despite rising electricity and transport costs, the foods division again showed growth in sales and improved margins while results of the banking/investment segment were mixed (Jamaica Daily Gleaner 2012). While these positive financial results cannot be entirely attributed to the opening of the Hounslow facility, they

136 nonetheless indicate that its opening has certainly not damaged the corporation's bottom line, even in a period in which global economic forecasts remained rather grim (United Nations 2011).

Even if one accepts that over the long run, the steady and guaranteed income from the fields would smooth out the highs and lows of the market fluctuations, the GraceKennedy operation and approach would provide limited benefit to the majority of smallholder farmers, at least within the study area. With the need to have irrigation, access to financing/credit, sufficient land to produce a guaranteed weekly amount, and a vehicle for transport just to be brought into the program, only those who are already in an advantaged position are able to benefit. A farmer in his 60s put it to me bluntly: “I don’t think Grace is in the interest of the poor. I think they are

[a] ripoff; I don’t believe them have the interests of the poor at heart. I believe they is there for themselves and themselves only…Grace is not giving you any price for it.”

Theme 3. Overproduction of the same commodities resulting in low prices.

The FOM of the GraceKennedy post-harvest and distribution facility mentioned in our interview (see above) that farmers in the area are highly sensitive to price, and use the term 'to catch a crop,' meaning that they have it for sale when there is a relatively low supply of that commodity and a correspondingly high price. Unfortunately for most of the farmers who participated in this research, this was a rare experience. Multiple farmers reported the exact opposite condition, with low prices resulting from over-production of the same commodities at the same times. Ironically perhaps, the danger is highest when conditions are best:

“In a good year, everybody produces, and the price drops because there's so much.”

“Right now, when the rain is good everybody plants. And then you have all the things at the same time...and people don't buy.”

137 “Everybody try to sell. That makes the price [get] push down.”

“When something is short, you don't have the produce. And then everybody plant it.”

“See, a lot of time, when the melon is short, you don't have the produce. And then everybody plant it.”

“Too much farmer plant one thing at the same time...this is a joke now, but it like, if we get a rain this evening, every farmer plant melon tomorrow morning! Everybody rush in, when the rain fall, and plant at the same time...”

A clear lack of coordination exists among farmers, along with a lack of information upon which that coordination could be based. The farmer who mentioned that the government could provide more informational assistance (see #1 above) talked about 'the small farmers not knowing what is going on away from their neighbors,' and that the government could play a role in providing the information necessary for coordination. A professor of Life Sciences at a small local college was discussing what agricultural commodities are best suited for the different areas of the country in terms of soil, precipitation, and elevation, and indicated his agreement that this was a potential area for a government role:

What I love to see for agriculture, what we need to have...a zoning area for agriculture [so that farmers grow what is best suited for their area]...the extension officer needs to work with the researcher ...they should guide the farmers as to what to produce, when to produce. They should have a record as to if farmers, a certain number of farmers in St Elizabeth are growing, say, tomato, then you make sure that other parishes are not producing tomatoes. They produce something else so that we do not have a glut. Because of recent times, tomato...I think it was probably being sold at a hundred dollars a pound and all of a sudden everybody grow tomatoes so what happened is that the price of tomatoes went to twenty dollars a pound...if you can study the market, when you see the price is good, don't plant that! When the price [of some commodity] is bad, you plant that...

This idea could be feasible since Jamaica is so small, roughly the size of the US state of

Connecticut, and because mobile phones are so common among nearly all strata of Jamaican

138 society. Several academic studies and reports in both industry and mainstream press in recent years have focused on the potential the nearly ubiquitous mobile phone technology has to help farmers in a variety of ways. Many of these studies describe ways that farmers can gain knowledge of market prices in different locations for different commodities, labor or work availability, pest management, opportunities for civic engagement, and other information (Jensen

2007; Aker 2010; Aker and Mbiti 2010; Chokshi 2010). Many possibilities exist for further development of these information networks in the Jamaican context. Waller (2010) points out that supermarket and grocery store owners could find local farmers with supplies of needed produce for immediate delivery, farmers could discover what items were needed in what areas.

However, absent some island-wide coordination along the lines suggested by the two interviews referenced above, the issue of overproduction and resultant low prices will remain. Currently,

RADA has a text messaging communication system for its registered farmers, but the information is limited to approaching adverse weather conditions, pest and disease outbreaks, and other information of an urgent nature (RADA 2010). Although this program is certainly useful in a hurricane-prone location such as Jamaica, it does not address the issues that Jamaican farmers participating in this research have identified; in addition, it only reaches RADA- registered farmers and is therefore rather limited.

In official statistics, the unemployment rate in Jamaica has hovered between eleven and fourteen and a half percent between 2009 and 2012, with unemployment among the young (aged

14-24) in the 30-37 percent range (Statistical Institute of Jamaica 2011, 2012b). However, these official figures obscure the actual situation. They exclude a group of the perpetually unemployed as 'outside of the labor force,' thereby keeping the unemployment numbers in the teens. The actual or 'real' level of unemployment is much higher, perhaps over 40 percent. Many people,

139 both in the study area and elsewhere in Jamaica, grow small amounts of agricultural commodities on small scraps of land as a way to cope with these high levels of unemployment and overall lack of economic opportunities. One farmer told me that he thought more people were farming in the area than had been the case in previous years, contradicting the general view. “Well, a lot of them are younger people,” he said. “A lot of them leave school and they can't find a job doing something, so they start farming some to try to get by.” I mentioned this response to another interviewee, and he replied, “maybe so, but the farms themselves are getting smaller...many are not even 'farms' anymore, but just 'patches' that it's impossible to make a living from.” Another farmer, talking about the area, said that younger people were trying to farm to “benefit themselves...everybody plant [a] garden, because there's not a trade school around here [to offer other opportunities].” These farmers are not being reached by the RADA text-message program, either.

The lack of coordination in planting is exacerbated by a strong tendency towards individualism among many Jamaican farmers. In part, this results from the valorization of liberty, individual choice, and self-reliance that is a powerful component of the widely promulgated ideologies associated with neoliberalism (Popke and Torres 2013), and the discourses that both emerge from and recursively work to maintain these ideologies. Popke and Torres (2013) made two other points relevant to this issue: First, they cite Harvey's (2005) point that the individual emphasis of the neoliberal project, multivalenced as it may be, discourages social solidarity and collective action. Framing the individual as the locus of praxis for responsible citizenship and economic activity supports the hegemony of modernist discourses, in this case in the guise of neoliberalism. The idea that best outcomes result from an autonomous individual acting in his/her self interest has come to be taken as ‘common sense’ and shunts alternative paths to the

140 margins, even if this common sense has been constructed in ways that benefit dominant groups at the expense of dominated ones (Gramsci 2011; Cresswell 2013).

Second, they made clear that the realm of options and actions that result from this individualistic approach are “dependent on a host of locally variant factors, not least the extent to which the ethos of neoliberalism aligns or conflicts with extant notions of social and ethical agency. This in turn is shaped by the characteristics of specific communities, including their histories of work and labor, forms of governance, and ethnic identity” (Popke and Torres 2013,

213). While certainly not a case of strict determinism, in the case of Jamaica these characteristics and the lived experience of many farmers have the potential inhibit the type of coordination that could be most effective.

Interviews above discuss the high levels of mistrust exhibited by farmers regarding the manner of governance they experience. As indicated in Chapter 2's historical overview and reinforced in the analysis of farmer interviews above, past experiences with government and governance have led to assumptions of clientelism, cronyism, and of state actors serving the interests of themselves and their associates rather than the 'small people.' Unfortunately, these negative assumptions have often been well-grounded. Smallholders are most frequently members of the most marginalized classes in Jamaican society, and are overwhelmingly black, compared to the 'whites, Syrians, Jews, Chinese, and browns' who make up the more powerful classes.

Importantly, Beckford's (1999) analysis made clear the lingering effects of the plantation experience long after slavery ended.

The experience of slavery and Emancipation, in the view of some, have reinforced the importance of independent action and 'controlling one's own destiny' in shaping identity and marked collective or cooperative actions with a negative connotation. Speaking in May 2012 at

141 the Calabash International Literary Festival in Treasure Beach, St Elizabeth, Jamaican-born

Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson stated, “what's good about us [Jamaicans] and what's bad about us both come from the experience of slavery.” He mentioned creativity, risk-taking, and resilience as positives, but contrasted these with high levels of violence, difficulties in gender

11 relations, and disdain for authority.

Writing in 1975, then-Prime Minister Michael Manley stated that in order to address the challenges faced by agriculture in Jamaica, a necessary element was creating radically different marketing techniques that included some cooperative arrangements: “...so far as the farmer is concerned, he must be persuaded to cast off some of the individualism of the past and to be willing to combine with his neighbors for the purposes of marketing and in relation to the sharing of modern equipment” (Manley 1975, 109-110). Manley (1975) dismissed the notion that cooperatives were a non-starter due to some character flaw among Jamaicans or reflected some individualistic nature, even while allowing that Jamaicans were wary of them; rather, he said they had tended to fail because they were badly organized and run (110,125). It is worthwhile to note

11 This notion was made clear on one trip to Jamaica on which my wife accompanied me for the first part, and before she left for home, we spent days two days in a small hotel in the mass- tourism mecca of Negril. While walking along the famous 'Seven Mile Beach' for which the area is famous, we came upon a cluster of souvenir and handicraft vendors with their wares displayed on four full sheets of plywood propped on trestles, arranged in a rectangle. The vendors all had the same kinds of things for sale, and in many cases, the exact same items. We often try to buy from some local vendors when in such situations, so engaged them in a friendly conversation while looking over what was for sale. My wife saw some earrings on one table that were somewhat unique, and purchased them. We looked over the other tables and then said goodbye, walking out towards the beach. A woman at one of the tables angrily called to my wife, saying "I'm very disappointed in you! You're not buying anything from me!" She was in direct competion with her plywood-sheet neighbors. These vendors were not gathered together in some kind of illustration of Hotelling locational model – the entire beach had others with the exact same things for sale every thirty or forty meters in either direction. They were a very personable bunch, and it made us wonder if they would not do better in that setting by pooling their wares and dividing their sales along some agreed-upon arrangement, similar to the way that tips are in some busy watering holes. 142 that at the time Manley (1975) was writing this, he was attempting to transform Jamaican economy and society through the promotion of ‘democratic socialism’ and follow a progressive internationalism in foreign affairs through, among other things, close ties with Fidel Castro and

Cuba; in discussing cooperative systems, he also mentioned the need for “a substantial degree of political education” (109). Especially when Edward Seaga became leader of the conservative JLP in 1974, these comments about cooperatives and authoritarian business structures left him open to critics’ charges that he was leading the country towards Cuban-style state communism

(Franklin 2012).

Though I do not take the position that some innate essential character of Jamaicans leads them to abhor cooperative types of organization, but one hears of this view frequently enough to support the idea that many Jamaicans perceive it at least to a degree. This perception was related to me in a long conversation with a young man in July 2011. We started out talking about the

Jamaican police after a couple of interactions we had each had, and the man took this conversation to a wider one about his impressions of 'the Jamaican mindset,' using sports as representational or emblematic of what he saw as the issue. 'Why does Jamaica have great sprinters?' he asked, and then answered himself saying, ‘because track is an individual sport. We will not be good at football (soccer), because that takes too much working as a team,’ and that concept is not deeply entrenched or highly respected in the Jamaica he perceived and experienced. He went on, saying that if a Jamaican man could be the best off he could only by helping someone else do as well as that person could, he would rather not be as well off and so remain independent. ‘It's all about me doing by myself.’ Echoing this sentiment, a farmer in his late 60s at the time of our interview said to me, 'I think a big problem is that nowadays, every man is just looking out for himself.'

143

Theme 4. High costs of chemical inputs.

The last of the issues most commonly identified by farmers in interviews was the high cost of inputs, including labor, but especially the fertilizers, insecticides, fungicides, and herbicides so commonly used as 'normal' agriculture. Combined with the low prices that farmers garner for their produce, these input costs place many on the very margins of survival. One of the few women farmers in the area told me, 'Those sprays are very expensive for things like melon and tomato. You go off and buy one bag of fertilizer, maybe it takes all the money you have. And then nobody buys.' This is a common theme. As another farmer said, “ we have to buy the fertilizer, we have to buy the spray...sometimes you could just save the money that you spent

[because it doesn't come to anything].” A man who had been farming for over twenty years in the area said, “you know, you pay for fertilizer, man labor...you spill out the money and then you sell everything and very very seldom do you [come out ahead].”

Several farmers were willing to talk about specifics of costs and prices regarding their crops. One farmer growing cantaloupe and honeydew, which because they grow on the ground can be subject to both insect pests and fungus, said they sprayed their field that morning, costing about JA$4000 (about US$47). At the time, honeydew and cantaloupe were being bought for

JA$15 per pound (just over US$0.17). This spraying has to be done every week, he said, and by the time that gets added to the cost of the seeds, other chemicals, and sometimes water (which had to be purchased on occasion in this dry area), “a thousand [pound] honeydew cost you thirteen thousand dollars [just over US$150]...it can't pay you.” At the going rate, that amount of melon would fetch around US$174, netting him a total of about twenty four US dollars. In a

144 different locality the following year, another farmer related a similar experience. “You not drowning,” he said, you treading water.”

Everything add up, because for instance to spray this ground it's four thousand dollars almost every time, which is fifty US dollars. Every time I spray this ground. And you have to spray it every eight days minimum, and the crop [bears] for three months...so every month you are talking about two hundred US dollars to spray...then you might need a next hundred and fifty dollars to fertilize it, so everything just keep adding...and if you are to pay for labor, too, oh my God that is...where get...a beating...fifteen hundred dollars minimum [~US$17]...At present the watermelon is ten dollars a pound [~US$0.11]...if I sell at that price I would lose drastically. So I am hoping that by the time I get there [time to sell] the price reaches thirty dollars a pound...[at that price] you do not lose, you do not really gain, but you do not lose...You have to say you got forty dollars a pound to say that you have gained anything on your watermelon.

At the 2011 Denbigh Agricultural Show, I looked at the display illustrating the operation of greenhouses. A table was covered with technical equipment and guides for application of agrochemicals (Fig. 4.8). I had been in a conversation with Soljah the year before regarding the technical requirements of greenhouse production. In this discussion, he was extolling the benefits of organic agriculture, and decrying what he saw in this new more 'technologized' approach:

“They are going greenhouse now, and it involve more chemical. They are going greenhouse now

[speech slows for emphasis] and it involve more chemical!” This emphasis on agrochemical input, in addition to adding to the cost burdens of many smallholders, represents one important aspect of the manner in which discourses of modernity are enacted and actualized by farmers.

This actualization, and the operations of the discursive system that rationalizes them, will be undertaken in the next chapter.

4.3. Conclusion

145 This chapter described the views expressed by farmers in the study area about their practices and the challenges and issues they face in the current Jamaican context. Not all comments, even some that several farmers repeated, were reported as themes. In several cases,

Figure 4.8. Greenhouse technology on display, Denbigh Agricultural Show. July 2011. Photo by the author.

they identified a problem or issue that, as the conversation continued, fit better into one of the existing themes. For example, two interviewees mentioned 'water' as a problem, but as they continued speaking, what they were actually identifying as the problem was the government ignoring their needs. Several farmers specifically mentioned 'credit' but those were included in the 'costs of inputs' or 'marketing' themes, depending on the conversation. Interviews with two farmers had credit as a problem in itself, but this did not become a common theme since other farmers did not speak about it.

146 The degree of struggle in which farmers engage was made clear by these interviews.

What does not come through from the chapter is the kindness and generosity these farmers often showed. While some were not enthusiastic about engaging in the interviews, most were welcoming and seemed genuine in their desire to speak with someone about their issues. Though many of these farmers were not well off, several insisted that I take with me some of what they grew; I frequently came back down from the hills with melons, cabbages, ackee, and other vegetables.

Most of the farmers interviewed were quite aware of the operations of the globalized economy, at least on some level, in shaping their circumstances. Some specifically talked about imports, while others, not using the words, spoke of agriculture as an absorber of excess unemployment. Several identified knowledge that would be classified as 'traditional' or 'local' as being superior in some cases to the 'scientific' knowledge that came from university research labs that was not grounded in their fields. Yet nearly all of these farmers continued to strive within discursive and economic 'regimes of truth' that disadvantaged them. These and their origins and development form the basis of the following chapter.

147 CHAPTER 5 DOMINANT DISCOURSES IN ACTION

5.1 Introduction

Many of the comments from farmers regarding the issues and challenges they face reflect the operation of certain types of power relations created within dominant discursive processes.

These power relations are not unidirectional, nor do these other parties bring about such actions and behaviors that are beneficial to them through mere coercion or direct control. The process is complex and multilayered, and involves farmers making decisions about their practices in a context of their own understanding, expert advice from extension and agronomic researchers, profit motives by Jamaican, US, and multinational companies, and thus a net of meanings, operations and interactions that together shape global political economy. As discussed in Chapter

1, modernist discourses have a long and deeply embedded history in shaping assumptions and practices, and the policies put in place to enact them.

In many cases, the farmers themselves are not conscious of the ways these discursive processes shape their actions, which is ofen in a manner that works to the benefit of other parties.

However, it is far too easy to interpret this as meaning that ‘common people’ are somehow less aware than academics such as geographers analyzing their actions, and not smart enough to know they are being manipulated. Not surprisingly this interpretation is not uncommon. What

Robbins (2007) said regarding his analysis of middle class, suburb-dwelling, lawn-maintaining

American homeowners is equally applicable to Jamaican farmers: it is condescending, classist, unconvincing, and empirically incorrect to describe them as a “bunch of dupes or shills for capital, unable to think for themselves” (xx). Additionally, the experts who provide the information on what it means to 'be a farmer' are likely equally unaware of the operation of these

148 power/knowledge relations in the course of their work; likewise, this has nothing to do with whether or not they are smart people.

The notion of ‘thinking for oneself’ is not without its own set of complications, however, nested as it is in a host of layers. That thinking necessarily occurs not by some disconnected, atomistically autonomous ‘self,’ but rather within a context created by individual experience, collective history, socio-economic/cultural setting, influences by commercial interests both overt and subtle, the discursive environment that shapes views on what ends and means are seen as natural, desireable, and perhaps inevitable. As Robbins (2012) pointed out, seemingly

“‘apolitical’ concepts, like ‘modern’ agrarian methods, ‘improved’ breeds, and ‘efficient’ production” (71), not to mention rationalized and naturalized concepts like ‘economic competitiveness,’ have political origins and effects. This idea of origin and effects was amplified by Cresswell (2013), in stating that “discourses have very specific sites where they arise.

Laboratories, clinics, universities...are all micro-geographies which are both the context for and part of the discourse” (213).

This chapter will provide illustrative examples of ways in which discourse has had the effect of producing certain types of agricultural subjects and agricultural landscapes in St

Elizabeth and elsewhere in Jamaica. It will utilize data from interviews and artifacts from other arenas that simultaneously reflect, produce, and maintain discourses and their associated 'regimes of truth' that constrain cognitive and imaginative fields of practice and the array of choices available to farmers: advertising and the popular press, agro-industry publications, government and international development agency policy statements, and certain avenues of academic research. First, the remainder of the chapter will examine ways in which smallholder farmers in

Jamaica are often framed as backward and resistant to change, and therefore in need of

149 advancement. Following this, the analysis will shift to the use of chemicals and other agro- technologies before focusing on the idea of economic competetiveness. Finally, aspects of the agricultural landscape of south St Elizabeth will be offered as an example of the enactment and actualization of the operations of discourse.

5.2. Farmers as ‘backward’ and resistant

The notion that peasants and smallholders in Jamaica and elsewhere are by nature backward, tradition-bound, conservative, resistant to change, and slow to innovate has been both long established and long debunked (deJanvry 1981; Chayanov 1986; Barker and Spence 1988;

Netting 1993; Hills 2000 [1983]; Beckford 2000, 2002; Kent 2002; Barker and Beckford 2005;

Beckford, Barker and Bailey 2007; Robbins 2012). Despite this debunking and development of a more nuanced and frequently positive view of smallholders and their responses to innovation, change, experimentation, and the like, aspects of the former view appear among many, including in segments of Jamaican society.

Several examples will have to suffice as illustrations. After describing larger estates and banana-producing properties as efficient and utilizing “the most modern techniques and methods,” McMorris (1957) goes on to make a contrast: “The small farmers, however, with limited skills and simple tools, and concentrating on short-term crops have tended for the most part to practise a type of agriculture that has depleted the soils...” (14). Edwards (1961) referred to farmers’ maintaining strong attachments to customary practices, and indicated that many exercised caution in adopting new techniques due to community disapproval and sanction; he also stated that farmers relied on traditional knowledge instead of expert knowledge (274).

Writing in 1988, McLaren and Johnson stated that “it is recognized that the techniques used in

150 production of many commodities have remained substantially unchanged for extended periods.

New streams/supplies of field-tested technology to adjust factor inputs to...increase production efficiency are lacking” (83). No empirical support for these observations are offered, just the reproduction of what is ‘common sense’ in the passive and generalized phrase ‘it is recognized.’

Rawlins (1983) cited farmers in Jamaica for their “failure to take advantage of technological advances” (5).

Even when local farmers develop and practice innovations, they are often not given proper credit. Only a few pages after the passage quoted above, McMorris (1957) noted that within the study area of this dissertation, which was part of the 'peanut' agricultural area of his study,

only a portion of the land is under cultivation at any particular time, the remainder being rested under a well-thought-out and seemingly complicated system of rotation which keeps land under a number of crops interplanted at different stages, for about two years, and then under grass for from seven to almost ten years. The grass provides a valuable crop not only for livestock feed, but also for the heavy mulching of crops to reduce too rapid evaporation of moisture...(18, emphasis mine).

McMorris (1957) also notes the use of livestock in the area as a way of maintaining fertility, therefore the wisdom and understanding based on intimate experience and knowledge developed

'in situ,' but goes on to decry the low levels of efficiency and production involved in the smallholder sector. He later recommends that because of the “low levels of capital resources and agricultural techniques and the lack of experience of most of these farmers in the handling of large loans it would be necessary to provide technical supervision and advice” (87-88 ), even though he had earlier offered examples of rather high levels of effective, as well as economically and ecologically appropriate and sound ‘agricultural techniques.’

151 The practice of mulching within the study area brought up by McMorris (1957) was itself the subject of a study twenty-five years later. Suah (1982) noted that the practice of dry mulch farming using Guinea grass (Panicum maximum) was negligible in much of Jamaica, but had become an essential part of the agricultural system in south St Elizabeth. He noted that it was extremely helpful in conserving moisture loss to evaporation, inhibiting runoff, weed control, protecting soil from wind and sun, adding nutrients, improving soil structure, serving as a cash crop, and providing padding for ground crops like watermelon and cucumber. However, even though it is a widely recognized hallmark of the area's agriculture, the farmers of south St

Elizabeth are not credited with developing the practice (Figures 5.1, 5.2). Instead, in what may be an outstanding example of Eurocentric diffusionism (Blaut 1993, 2000) Suah (1982) stated,

“most of the farmers in the area are descended from early German settlers who may have brought the mulching technique with them from Europe, making it possible to survive” (89). Though a small community in Westmoreland near the St Elizabeth border is known as 'German Town' (see

Chapter 2), this is far removed from the area Suah (1982) is describing. Not one person with whom I have spoken as part of this research has ever mentioned this aspect of local ethnic origins, nor are German surnames present to any great degree in the region, aside from some contemporary expatriots. Suah (1982) offers no support for his assertion of the technique's genesis, and thus negates the potential for African or local origins of this highly effective, sustainable, and sometimes income-generating practice even though, as the name indicates, the plant originated in the Gulf of Guinea region of West Africa (McCosker and Teitzel 1975).

Though these selected examples are decades old, the perception continues into our contemporary context. Referring not to Jamaica, but to the wider world of the social-majority

152

Figure 5.1. Guinea grass (Panicum maximum) mulching, near Round Hill. June 2009. Photo by the author.

agriculturalists, in the welcoming address of a World Bank workshop in Berlin, Kochendörfer-

Lucius (2008) reproduced a common perception of these farmers' practices as responsible for environmental degradation, a view that figured prominently in the early development of political ecology (Blaikie and Brookfield 1987). She identified a contributing factor to the situation that in some "poor countries, agriculture has stagnated and failed to deliver its potential...[was]...abuses of natural resources due to current agricultural techniques" (Kochendörfer-Lucius 2008, 13). A

2011 Miami Herald article on the emergence of an 'agricultural renaissance' brought about by use ofgreenhouses traces the technology's origin to a US government program in 2005. It stated

153

Figure 5.2. Cut Guinea grass being trucked to fields, Great Bay. June 2009. Photo by the author.

that “the technology was initially met with reluctance by farmers who were unwilling to change their traditional farming methods even as the government pushed to reduce its food import bill and increase access to locally grown food” (Charles 2011, emphasis mine). This phrasing positions the farmers as not wanting to participate in the reduction of food imports, which many farmers identified in interviews as a problem for the country and themselves.

Official statements from the Jamaican government and multilateral bodies follow a similar conceptualization of smallholder farmers. A 2002 Jamaican Ministry of Agriculture plan decried low farmer yield stated unequivocally that “farmers’ access to and adoption of improved technology has been slow” (42), linking together two potentially widely varied explanations for farmers not utilizing a generalized (and unidentified) ‘improved technology.’ The following year,

154 another government document described challenges to Jamaican agriculture by stating that along with other things, “the limited use of improved technology continue to plague the sector”

(Ministry of Agriculture 2003, 43). A combined European Union, Government of Jamaica, and private agency strategy report stated in its Executive Summary that while the agro-processing and horticulture in Jamaica showed “immense potential and opportunity waiting to be unlocked,” successes had resulted "either corporate, well-established family businesses and/or progressive individuals (Jamaican Agriculture Sub-Sector Strategy 2009, 7; emphasis mine), a statement that represents the inferiorized half of a hierarchized dualism. Likewise, Mustafaoglu (2011) presented a flow chart identifying various challenges and bottlenecks for the food-processing industry; one listed under the category of ‘Raw Material’ was the “lack of proper application of growing practices” (249, Figure 8.20). Even when the point is to praise farmers the notion of backwardness can appear, as was the case when then-Minister of Agriculture Christopher Tufton selected several farmers to laud in a 2008 budget speech in Parliament. After mentioning several names and what they had done, Tufton said of them, “They have seen the new agriculture, Mr.

Speaker, driven by markets and technological improvements. However, they are in the minority”

(Tufton 2008, 2-3).

The persistence of these perceptions over time defies much of the research that comes to contradictory conclusions. Beckford (2002) cited conclusions drawn by Collymore (1986) that ascribes ‘failure’ to decide to adopt new technologies and practices by smallholders to the ‘coldly rationalistic’ scientificism of many agricultural planners, and that “meaningful observations of decision-making [regarding innovations in farming] should occur at the interface between human rationality and the complex environments in which small-scale farmers operate” (Beckford 2002,

250-251). Thus, evaluation of agricultural practices should take into account assessments and

155 perceptions involved in farmer decision-making that includes rather than excludes indigenous/traditional knowledge and localized environmental awareness (WinklerPrins 1999,

2001; Beckford 2002). A similar position was argued by Hills (2000 [1983]), who said that adoption of new technologies should be seen in light of preserving traditional knowledge and wisdom and blending it with what is new. Research among the Maroon community of

Accompong by Barker and Beckford (2006) contradicted many of the stereotypes of the 'resistant traditionalist smallholder' and cite several examples of selective adoption based on experimentation.

Though her research on soil conservation techniques by farmers was based in the Blue

Mountains, Kent (2002) offered an important point in evaluating technique adoption that has wider applicability both within Jamaica and among the rest of the social-majority world. She reported that the soil conservation techniques she observed represented hybrids of 'traditional' practices combined with introduced technologies, and advocated for a historical perspective on what is a dynamic process rather than a simple 'accept/reject' binary. The partial adoption of soil conservation techniques in Jamaica were often represented as 'failures' due to their partial nature in light of targeted goals set by agencies and programs sponsoring them, and thus serves as further evidence for the 'backwardness' of Jamaican farmers. This partial adoption/hybrid system development should be seen rather as a legitmate process. A conclusion by Kent (2002) was that

“widespread partial adoption and incorporation of new ideas...is the principal way in which we might expect to see soil conservation technologies taken up” (54).

One more contradiction needs to be noted. In an oft-cited study of small farming in

Jamaica, Edwards (1961) stated that “very little artificial fertilizer is use in Jamaican agriculture”

(241), citing both economic limitations and farmer resistance. However, current observations of

156 agriculture in Jamaica indicate that nothing could be further from the case; a problem now that will be developed below is that the near-universal adoption of this technological innovation may have been carried to a harmful degree.

Several interviews revealed this perception of smallholder ‘backwardness’ among non- farmers during the course of the present study. The Field Operations Manager (FOP) of the

GraceKennedy Post-harvest and Packaging Facility discussed in Chapter 3 referred to one of the difficulties he faced being overcoming farmers' attitudes and practices:

...one of the major problems we have right now is...these guys, their culture is that, they'll plant one crop...They'll plant at a particular time. They'll know, 'this is when I plant'...so it's – it's getting them into the mold, you know?

[Interviewer: So that really goes against some more traditional practices.]

Yes. Yes.

[Interviewer: ...a lot of [farmers] have talked about traditional knowledge, you know, you plant certain things at certain times...even phases of the moon, and things like that...So you're trying to overcome some of those things.]

Right...yes.

Several different marginalizing discourses operate in this exchange. The most obvious perhaps is the disparagement of traditional knowledge regarding planting times, even though such practices are widespread outside of the Caribbean and little research has been done regarding their connections to other tropical bio-ecological processes, such as life cycle patterns of insect pests, for example. The head of a Jamaican NGO that promotes organic agriculture agreed. Asked about the decline in use of more traditional knowledge and its replacement with technical expertise, she said regarding the traditional knowledge, “You don't value it. You tell people...they need to do something else because what they're doing is the wrong thing...it doesn't

157 work like that...you can't do this. You shouldn't do that. You should be doing so. You're not modern. It's all those sorts of messages that keep continuing...to creep into the dialogue.”

In the brief FOP interview excerpt, ‘the farmer’ is presented as having a specific gendered identity. The organic NGO head pointed to this as a widespread issue in not only in agriculture,

1 but also many aspects of Jamaican life. In discussing gender as it regards farmers' use of organic practices, she said,

Well, gender is definitely an important variable. Uh, one of the things I see...and I open on is when people say, 'the farmer, he...' Some of the research...done in Jamaica identif[ies] the fact that women farmers contribute sixty-five to eighty percent of the off farm/on farm decisions...now, that's a tremendous amount. And it's not respected or recognized...I think one of the things that I have a really personal problem with is the...the lack of respect for what women do in Jamaica anyway.

On occasion, the message that farmers are 'not modern' does more than 'creep into the dialogue,' as the interviewee asserts above; it can be far more straightforward than that. At the

2011 annual Agricultural Show at the Denbigh Fairgrounds near May Pen, Clarendon, part of the large RADA display area featured various materials and publications having to do with protected

(greenhouse) agriculture. One of the publications available was a ‘guide to farm business management’ authored by Ministry of Agriculture consultant agronomist Webster McPherson

(n.d.). The following rather lengthy segment from the Introduction is worth reproducing, as it describes the qualities necessary for success in agriculture, frequently by creating a contrast with practices and attitudes the author sees as problematic (reproduced as it appears, emphases added).

1 I do not suggest that this particular problem is specific or limited to Jamaica.

158 For protected agriculture to be successful it cannot be operated in the manner that some open field farming operations have been conducted. It cannot be business as usual. The system requires conscientious farmers with a pragmatic business approach and skilled or trainable labourers possessing the temperament and commitment to pay close attention to details. Farmers will have to make the quantum leap from being involved in agriculture (Our culture or way of life linked to the land or Farming as a way of life) and become practicing agribusiness entrepreneurs (An information driven, entrepreneurial approach to food production or Farming as a business). They have to see themselves as entrepreneurs who are investing money in their businesses with a view to maximizing profits and optimizing returns on their investment capital. They will now have to practice food production based on intelligent technical information and driven by market demand. They will also be forced to start taking their extension officers seriously. He will have to be viewed in his proper perspective; as a trained individual possessing technical information and skills which if properly learnt and implemented on a timely basis could improve the productivity of his farm, financial situation and way of life; and not only as a person who he wants to see only if there are some amounts of farm inputs and small tools to be handed out (McPherson n.d., 2).

In this passage, the author implies multiple negativities associated with farmers: ‘business as usual’ means lack of conscientiousness, and laborers that are unskilled (or un-trainable) and do not care about or possess the temperament for attention to detail. Farming is a ‘way of life linked to the land’ (and providing people with food) needs to be rejected by the magnitude of a quantum leap to reach the new era of farmers as entrepreneurs. Farmers will now have to base their practices on ‘intelligent technical information,’ implying that previously, decisions were based on its opposite. The extension agent is a male expert, whose technical knowledge is knowledge that ‘counts,’ and freeloading farmers should no longer see these trained technical experts just to seek handouts of free stuff. This last point was amplified in an interview with a

RADA parish official in 2011, who said, “…RADA has a perception of being a place where people can come to get things. It’s thought of amongst the general populace as being…a

‘benevolent’ organization, but…it’s not there to be a handout agency.”

159 A few pages later, the author begins a discussion of the need for accurate record keeping thus: “Today’s complex world economy and the rapid pace of the farming industry make it impossible for producers to manage a farm enterprise the way their parents did 30 years ago.

Without a proper understanding of record keeping and its current and future implications, the farm operator will not make it very far in today’s globalized business environment” (McPherson n.d., 5). The messages are clear: this is not the world of your backward parents. The past must be banished. The elderly woman in Newell with a RADA greenhouse is an entrepreneur operating in the globalized business environment of a complex and rapidly changing world economy.

Agriculturalists are now 'producers' and 'farm operators.' The author of this guide, which has farmers as its intended audience, has described all the things they need to be through describing what they are not.

As shown in many of the comments above, a common thread running through the assertion of smallholder backwardness concerns the technology that is positioned as both a marker of modern agriculture and a source of farmers' salvation. This is true in the fields of policymaking, development assistance, and in academic research. Also, farmers are consistently bombarded with images and messages. Some of the most readily available agricultural information for farmers has to do with the staggering host of agrochemicals they should apply to their fields and plants. The following section will offer examples of how agricultural technology is both a discursive system within modernity and a material practice of farmers in south St

Elizabeth.

At the level of policy shaping/making and multilateral development agencies, farmers’ needs are often placed in a context of new technology. In their analysis of national agro-research systems, Byerlee and Alex (1998) asserted that “Improved technology is a critical factor in a

160 country’s ability to exploit its comparative and competitive advantages…the next stage of productivity increases will depend on pushing the production frontier outwards…” (14).

Speaking on how to realize agricultural potential in poor countries, Kochendörfer-Lucius (2008) stated, “These [effective investments and policies] must spread the benefit of new technologies…if we agree that there is some scope for technical solutions for agricultural growth…what would be needed?” (13-14). The Jamaica Agricultural Society’s Annual

Agricultural Show at Denbigh produces a souvenir magazine for each year’s event. The 2011 version contained several messages from leading public figures that emphasized the role of

2 technology. Jamaica’s Governor General Sir Patrick Allen said, “The use and inclusion of technology for optimizing production, increasing productivity and improving the quality of the product is a matter the sector should also review and adopt in a meaningful way” (Denbigh

2011a, 10). Bruce Golding, who was Prime Minister at the time, followed with his own comment, “We intend to re-shape and reform the image of our country’s farmers to one of a

‘modern-day’ farmer equipped with the requisite advanced technology and tools to increase his/her productivity levels (Denbigh 2011b, 10). Robert Montague, who had just recently replaced Christopher Tufton as Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries (see above), declared, “For too long agriculture has been seen as welfare active and as we are in a technologically driven world, so too must we work to improve the technology in agriculture and to change that perception” (Denbigh 2011c, 11).

2 As a Commonwealth country, the interests of the British monarchy are represented by an appointed Governor General, who acts primarily in a ceremonial role. 161 This same 2011 Denbigh Souvenir Magazine featured a piece of several pages in length titled ‘Technology in Agriculture.’ Before going into an overview of several types of agricultural technologies, the authors stated,

Farmers and related industries...utilize modern equipment and systems such as computers to work in their fields, green-houses, nurseries...processing plants and food stores. This use of technology is as important to the agri-food business as it is to any other business...This advance in technology has resulted in dramatically improved turnaround time of certain products from the research lab to our tables (Denbigh 2011d, 20).

This passage contextualizes technology, exemplified by specific mention of the computer, as part of modern practice in farming, just like any other business; the term 'agri-food business' serves to hive the modern practitioner off from the tradition-bound farmer. The piece then describes in somewhat heroic terms some of the latest technological advances in agriculture, primarily having to do with genetic modification and development of new animal feeds and vaccines. The piece then provided overviews of various agro-technologies being utilized in Jamaica: Greenhouses, hydroponics, aquaponics, aquaculture, and drip irrigation.

Having come up several times to this point, the topic of greenhouses deserves further mention. Perceptions of political clientelism in their distribution aside (see Chapter 3), they have been widely promoted as a way to address multiple problems facing Jamaican farmers (Fintrac

2006; USAID 2008, 2009; Jamaica Daily Gleaner 2009; Charles 2011, Denbigh 2011d). Several of these publications assert that greenhouse technology reduces the need for application of chemical inputs (Fintrac 2006; USAID 2008), but this assertion is contradicted by statements by farmers in the field (see Chapter 3). I asked a person at the 'Protected Agriculture' display area at the Denbigh 2011 agricultural show why their promotional materials indicated that an advantage was protection from pests while both the design plans on display included ports for pest

162 fumigation and the items on the table included pesticides, and was told it was still necessary to use insecticides. Charles (2011) quoted a farmer growing greenhouse tomatoes as saying “pests and disease are a big problem” (3). Thus, the greenhouse program in Jamaica both represents a trope of technology by itself and figures in the maintenance of the other primary guise of technological modernity, use of agro-chemicals.

5.3 Agro-chemical use

Origins of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and other chemical inputs can be traced to the end of the Second World War, and have become ubiquitous in contemporary agricultural production (Pollan 2006; Galt 2008). Without a doubt, synthetic agrochemicals have contributed to increasing the amount of agricultural production and decreasing the monetary food budget as a percent of total income of social-minority populations as well as reducing costs of agricultural commodities used as industrial raw materials and thereby increasing profits of agro-industrial concerns (Schlosser 2001; Pollan 2006; Kenner 2009; Martin 2009). Their use, and in some cases, overuse, can cause environmental and health problems; their association with modern agriculture, however, keeps their use in the forefront of agricultural production in Jamaica and in many similar settings.

Their pervasive nature in Jamaica is clear from conversations with farmers. Nearly all farmers with whom I spoke as part of this project referred to the high costs of their various chemical inputs (Chapter 3), and many voiced sentiments similar to the one who said to me, “but what can you do? You can't plant without them.” As part of this research, I went into two different 'farm stores' in the study area, one small independent and one of six national AgroGrace outlets, located in the town of Southfield (Figure 5.3). In both cases, after introducing myself and

163 explaining the purposes of my project and obtaining informed consent, I asked what I would

3 need if I was starting to grow vegetables in the area. I specified an area of three squares, typical of a smallholder in the area, and crops of tomato, beetroot, and skellion. In each case I was given a litany of chemicals that I would need to apply to the land, to the seedlings, and to the plants once they were established – this without any indication of the presence of a pathogen or pest, but for prophylactic use.

In one instance, I was told to use Gramoxone, Dual Gold, or Roundup (all glyphosphate- based herbicides) to 'prepare the land' right after putting mulch down, then to use fungicides like

Topsin or Ridomil on the seedlings, and then apply insecticides like Decis (a deltamethrin-based product), a pyrethroid, or Lannate every ten to twelve days. Tomatoes or melon would be subject to bacteria spot, so I would need to use a copper-based fungicide, along with regular applications of fertilizer as well. A very similar set of recommendations ensued from the simulated

4 consultation in the other establishment.

As is to be expected, farmers entering these stores are exposed to range of advertising and promotional materials. Signs and handouts provide the prospect of high profits through greater production (Figure 5.4). In a situation similar to many businesses, suppliers make promotional handouts and other materials available for customers. Each of the farm stores visited – not just the ones in which the 'new farmer' simulation was carried out – had similar materials. One was a

3 Units of linear and areal measurement used in Jamaica such as rods, chains, and squares were more common inearlier times in the US, Canada, and UK. A chain is 22 yards/66 feet and a ‘square’ refers to a square chain (484 square yards, or ten squares to the acre; one square is 0.04 hectare). 4 Though there were several other farm stores scattered throughout the study area, I did not replicate this experiment with them. In each case, the person behind the counter was someone youthful and not more than a cashier/clerk; the person who could advise me was not present and I could not get an indication of when the manager would return. 164 calendar titled 'Farming Today 2012' produced by Caribbean Chemicals Ltd. (based in Trinidad) and distributed by Hi Pro Farm Supplies, located in an industrial area east of Spanish Town in St

Figure 5.3. AgroGrace Farm Store, Southfield. June 2012. Photo by the author. (NOTE: Sign reads “DANGER- Highly Toxic, Handle With Care;” Other text not intended to be readable).

Figure 5.4. Sign at farm store, Mountainside. June 2010. Photo by the author. 165 Catherine. The cover shows seven shots of farmers from around the Caribbean either in their fields or with their harvested items, labeling them as 'Mega Farmers Throughout the Caribbean.'

If the calendar is hanging, the lower half contains the month while the upper half displays advertising. Each half of the calendar has 585 square centimeters of available display space. The fraction of the lower portion allows less than 230 square centimeters of space for the month's calendar, or less than forty percent of the 'month' half of the calendar (Figure 5.5). If a farmer was hang this calendar in her/his home, just over eighty percent of each month's display would be ads for various agro-inputs: mostly insecticices, herbicides, fungicides; two ads for seeds, several fertilizers (one 'Green Planet' formulation from Belgium), one for a seed germination medium, one for spray equipment, and one for greenhouses. These products are from various companies like BASF, Monsanto, Seminis, Agri-gro; none of these are Jamaican- or Caribbean-

5 based. If a person wants to be among the 'Mega Farmers' in the Caribbean, the message regarding the path is very clear.

One of the handouts that was available at each one of the farm stores I visited showed an attractive image of hands holding a seedling and soil on the top, a very caring and nurturing image that positively frames farming and farmers. The lower portion displays several different agrochemicals from several different companies along with the name and logo of the flyer's producer, the Jamaican branch of the 'Ace Hardware' group familiar in the US (Figure 5.6). The implied association between these two images is obvious, but it is the text that carries the strongest associative discursive elements. Between the images of the chemicals and the hands holding soil and seedlings, the text reads “Treating the soil...protecting our crops.” By extension,

5 The calendar's back cover features small usage guides for insecticide, herbicide, fungicide, rodenticide and not surprisingly, a poison treatment chart. 166 then, failing to treat the soil in the manner suggested by the combined nurturing hands and agrochemicals is failing to protect 'our' crops; the first person possessive 'our' seemingly implies this is an abrogation of responsibility for food security.

Figure 5.5. Scanned 'month' page for May 2012 of Hi Pro Farm Supplies company promotional calendar. (NOTE: Text in the image is not intended to be readable; the image is for visual reference only)

Directly beneath the portion of the image that shows the array of agrochemicals and above the list of specific product names, another smaller line of text states, “Jamaican farmers take pride in their freshly grown produce which contribute to the health and growth of our nation's families.”Again, the way to accomplish this contribution to the “health and growth of our nation's families” resulting from one's freshly grown produce – of which one is rightly proud

167 – is suggested by the powerful images in the flyer. In a country such as Jamaica with its history of exploitation by both earlier colonialism and later globalization, these associations of using modern agricultural technology with pride, protection of the nation's collective food supply, and keeping the nation's families healthy and growing might resonate especially strongly. These dynamics are similar to what Robbins (2007) described regarding lawn chemical ‘pull’ advertising in the US. The lawn represents a space of family and community: “…the lawn is represented as something that transcends personal value to home lawn managers, with collective activities and pride among neighbors in increasing prominence” (Robbins 2007, 92, emphasis added). In this Jamaican example of 'pull' advertising, treating one's fields and crops with these chemicals is an act that goes beyond one's self-interest, and is in fact an act of duty towards the people of the nation.

The 2011 Denbigh Fair, not surprisingly, had several tents set up by agrochemical companies that featured colorful displays and attractive images of bountiful harvests (Figures

5.7, 5.8). These companies utilize the similar type of imagery and discursive elements as the handout discussed above. Hi-Pro exhorts farmers to utilize their products in order to experience

'profitable production,' even though profitability for many if not most Jamaican farmers is dependent on a host of factors other than production levels, as interviews with farmers indicated

(Chapter 3). For many farmers in south St Elizabeth and elsewhere in Jamaica, increased levels of production of vegetables would likely contribute to the oversupply of various commodities that occur so frequently and cause prices to fall. In such a circumstance, many smallholders would be pushed out of farming. Beneficiaries would be those who utilize agricultural commodities as industrial raw materials for food products, or farmers whose operations are large enough to take advantage of economies of scale and use volume of sales to remain afloat,

168 possibly by participating with exporters to send their commodities abroad. The 'productivist' message therefore 1) brings advantages to those farmers already in an advantaged position, and

2) does little to enhance Jamaican food security or smallholder livelihoods.

Figure 5.6. Scan of promotional flyer, Ace Supercentre (NOTE: Text in the image is not intended to be readable; the image is for visual reference only).

169

Figure 5.7. Newport-Fersan Fertilizer display, Denbigh Agricultural Show. July 2011. Photo by the author.

Figure 5.8. Hi-Pro Fertilizer and Feeds display, Denbigh Agricultural Show. July 2011. Photo by the author (NOTE: Ads in foreground not intended to be readable). 170

The companies represented by these tents at the Denbigh Agricultural show offer an illustration of the role played by the larger political economy. Newport-Fersan has the name

'Jamaica' incorporated into their banner (albeit in parentheses), but as my interview at the

AgroGrace farm store revealed, this company is a mainly a blender/formulator of products made from chemicals that are imported into Jamaica, primarily from the US (Du Pont and Monsanto figure prominently, but also Germany's BASF). Examining import statistics in light of broader trends in Jamaican agriculture is revealing.

Jamaica's top traditional export crops, sugar cane and bananas, are typically input- intensive. Production of both these commodities has declined precipitously (Jamaica Department of Statistics 1972, 1980; Feuer 1984; Bank of Jamaica 2000; Jamaica Planning Institute 2010).

For example, sugar production in 2009 stood at 125,818 tonnes compared to the 1965 high of

514,825 tonnes (jamaicasugar.org). From independence in 1962 through 1972, banana exports hovered between sixteen and twenty million stems per year but then began a steady decline; as the result of a combination of 1) the loss of preferential market access in the UK due to a WTO complaint by the United States in the late 1990s and 2) storm damage over the last decade, exports were virtually at zero last year after earning over US$13 million in 2006 (Jamaica

Department of Statistics 1972, 1980; Jackson 2012). Such declines in these input-intensive commodities should likely result in declines of aggregate use of chemical inputs, but that is not necessarily the case.

Fertilizer provides an illustrative example. A host of different chemicals are used in the production of common synthetic fertilizers. Data on imports to Jamaica of various chemicals are available through the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Three

171 very common fertilizer components – urea, ammonium nitrate, and phospate components and specifially diammonium phosphate – do not show the perhaps-expected drop over time (Table

6 5.1). Quantities showed large fluctuations from year to year, so for the purposes of illustration average annual import quantities are shown in Table 5.1 for ten-year periods. While the numbers may not universally indicate an upward trend, neither do they show any significant overall decline in fertilizer imports. One point not apparent in the aggregated decadal data shown in

Table 5.1 has to do with ammonium nitrate. In the periods during which quantities are indicated, they did notcome in during all of the years in the decade. During the period from 1981-1990, only three out those ten years had any imports at all. For the decade 1991-2000, the substance only came into Jamaica during that last year, while for the most recent decade quantities entered

Jamaica in eight out of the ten years (FAOSTAT).

Table 5.1. Average annual imports by decade of fertilizer component chemicals to Jamaica 1961-2010, in metric tons (Source: FAOSTAT).

1961-1970 1971-1980 1981-1990 1991-2000 2001-2010 Urea 407.8 329.5 4630.9 3529.3 2819.6 Ammonium Nitrate 0 0 190.6 20 662.1 7 Phosphate / 2453.4 3683.9 3472.3 5033.6 5217.3 (NH4)2HPO4

6 These three were chosen to illustrate the trends due to their commonality as fertilizer components and the availability of an acceptable time series in the data set. Other compounds were possible, but showed up in some years and not others for Jamaica . The 'phosphate' category in Table 4.1 remains a little problematic; see the associated note. 7 Due to differences between current and archived FAO data, the numbers in italics in the last two columns do not indicate time periods consistent with the rest of the table. They are for the periods 1991-2001 and 2002-2010. They also represent the specific compound diammonium phosphate, indicated by the chemical formula shown in the table. This particular compound does not appear in the archived data prior to 1991, and the broader category in the archived data of 'Phosphate fertilizers' does not appear in the non-archived contemporary data for Jamaica. Therefore, these numbers should not be taken as indicating a linear progression, but rather are like comparing apples and apple-like oranges. 172 Lower levels of production of bananas and sugar along with a twenty percent decline in total land under cultivation since 1996 (Statistical Institute of Jamaica 2013) along with steady or increasing imports of fertilizer components suggest that those fertilizer manufacturers and formulators are finding new consumers in Jamaica. Indeed, according to a former head of an

NGO that promotes organic agriculture in the country, there has been “heavy marketing of pesticides in Jamaica over the past thirty years, which has created a pesticide sub-culture in the country. It will take several years to reverse that sub-culture…‘modernity’ as an ideal has played a role in the development of this pesticide and fertilizer sub-culture.” He also stated that his organization had tried to educate the public about the benefits of organic agriculture, but

“realized we were fighting a battle against agents of the state and powerful chemical companies.”

This aggressive marketing of chemicals were supported by comments made by an interviewee in 2012, an elderly man who currently lives in the US for most of the year and was back in Jamaica to attend a funeral. His son currently farms, and his parents did farming also.

When I asked him about ways that farming was different for his son compared to his parents, he said,

Not much spray. They never used much spray those days when I’m a little boy growing up and my father doing farming. Him don’t use much fertilizer; very little…you see those bushes now, him cut down those bushes…dry and it rotten up and it make manure [mulch].You don’t find the younger one doing that now…I don’t know but all of a sudden it came about… people go out and them carry research (do research) and them come in with different type of spray every year. You have different, new type of spray, but when I check it out I just check out seh [when I think about it] that it is just making money for the, you know, those people that making the spray to make more money. Because you will get one type of spray this year and then a different type of spray come out on the market.

173 Another person who currently heads a pro-organic NGO told an anecdote regarding a series of training programs the organization carried out, which were supposed to include people from RADA. In speaking with a RADA official, she related:

I said, ‘Well, we have a real problem because we are not seeing them in the field.’ And he said, ‘Well, you know what you need…you need to have some field days.’ So I said, ‘Well, ok. We can have some field days. We’ll just set up the field days and then they can come.’ And he said, ‘it’s a little more difficult than that.’ So I said, ‘why?’ He said, ‘Well, the field days, you have to pay RADA to come.’ In other words, you had to pay their travel and, et cetera, et cetera. So I said, ‘We don’t have money for that.’ He said, ‘Well, you know…’ and looked embarrassed. He said, ‘We usually get money from the chemical companies.’

In a country strapped for resources like Jamaica, such occurrences are not surprising. The previous summer, a RADA parish director told me that he had just been through a situation in which he had not gotten any money from the government for three months to pay travel expenses for his extension officers, who receive low salaries to begin with. Therefore, the expenditure by agro-chemical companies to pay extension officers to come to workshops for their products represents an investment with a significant potential for return, as it 1) makes it likely that programs that do not pay for attendees to come will be less attended, 2) frames the company and its products in a very positive light for extension agents, and 3) contributes to the normative entrenchment of chemical-based agricultural practices.

In discussing fears surrounding the spread of West Nile virus and abatement of vector mosquitoes in Arizona, Robbins (2012) provided an analogy to what is described above:

…districts and cities that invested in certain kinds of technologies…came to think about the insect threat precisely through the habits of practice and logics imposed by their equipment. In many cases, moreover, training in the use of such equipment is provided directly by private companies that supply the materiel. In other words, the logic of mosquito abatement was not entirely free of the logics imposed on the problem by profit-seeking entities with exclusive access…to managers and technicians (243).

174 Thus, techniques and technologies, practices and preferences, are shaped in a context that is set by corporate entities that seek to delineate the boundaries of the ‘normal’ in agricultural behaviors. A researcher at a small Jamaican university paralleled Robbins' (2012) comments in talking about the high amount of imported agricultural materiel in Jamaica: seeds, fertilizer components, pesticides and fungicides, animal feeds/medication/vitamins. He said, “So agriculture on the whole is being manipulated by external sources and even some of the equipment...even your spray can or your mechanical equipment...most of these are imported into the country, so external source has a severe impact on the whole agricultural activity here in

Jamaica.”

The agro-chemical industry contributes in several other ways to the construction of knowledge and information about normative practices in agriculture. For example, an annual publication for farmer, the Tropical Farmers’ Almanac, shows a logo, address, telephone, and website URL for the agro-chemical company AgroGrace above the publication title, along with the motto, “Everyday guide to successful farming” below it (Fig. 5.9). At the bottom of the page, the Jamaican coat of arms is displayed with the statement “Compliments of the Ministry of

Agriculture” and a brief mission statement describing the development of a “modern, efficient, and internationally competitive agricultural sector” (Tropical Farmers’ Almanac 2011) The second page of the publication further cements the Ministry of Agriculture’s association to the publication and its contents further with a message from then-Minister of AgricultureChristopher

Tufton.

Along with an editorial, production statistics, and advice on agribusiness opportunities, recipes, a calendar, data on the moon phases and rainfall averages, crosswords, and an advice column on bad breath, the roughly 20 cm by 14 cm (8.2 by 5.25 inch), 88-page publication has

175

Figure 5.9. Scan of cover image, Tropical Farmers’ Almanac, 2011 edition. Used by permission (NOTE: Text in the image is not intended to be readable; the image is for visual reference only).

176 one page on environment tips for farmers, one page on homemade organic pesticides, while eight pages are dedicated to charts for use and application of pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides.

Not counting the AgroGrace logo on the cover, eight out of 17 advertisements are for chemicals or chemical distributors; the others are for producer associations, a printing service, a packaging company, and schools and training programs of various types. Thus, the government through the

Ministry of Agriculture presents the appearance at least of endorsing a certain manner of agricultural technique and practice.

Another pathway through which the chemical industry influences how agriculture is conceptualized as an activity is through the funding of research and funding the publication of periodicals. Certainly not all academic research can be painted with this brush; for example, social science research has been at the forefront of de-bunking the idea of farmers as ‘backward’ as indicated in Section 5.2 above. The examples offered below come primarily from the fields of agronomy and agricultural economics, especially as it is related to planning and development. As discussed in Chapter 1, the very idea of modernity has close associations with science and the exclusive valuation of knowledge deemed ‘scientific.’ Thus, scientific research funded by industry can appear to have the patina of scientific objectivity and its associated gravitas. A professor familiar with agriculture studies at the University of the West Indies said, “while some…at UWI…are pushing for an ecological management approach to agriculture, that is not the general thrust of agriculture in the University at this time.”

Like many other major universities, the University of the West Indies at Mona, located to the northeast of Kingston proper, has several specialty libraries in addition to the main library.

One of these is the Science Library, which serves as a primary resource for the University’s agricultural-oriented programs, including students, faculty, and researchers of the Caribbean

177 Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI). Like many other institutions in

Jamaica, the University and its libraries are under cost pressures, so in this economic context the periodicals section of the Science Library represents conscious choices on the part of faculty and researchers as to what publications and other resources limited funds go towards purchasing.

None of the available agriculture-oriented periodicals I saw had any focus other than what has come to be called ‘conventional,’ meaning ‘agro-chemical-based,’ agriculture. I did not see any publications, either in the catalog or on the shelves, specifically devoted to alternative, organic, or sustainable agriculture (although I specifically looked to find examples of these, I cannot and do not make the claim that they do not exist in this collection). I picked two periodicals for perusing, based on several criteria: 1) availability of most issues of volumes spanning at least three years, 2) not being focused on a single crop/commodity or class of crops,

3) not being place- or region-specific, and 4) having recent issues (within the previous year) available. Two journals that met these criteria were the Journal of Agricultural Science (ISSN

0021-8956) and Outlooks in Pest Management (ISSN 1743-1026).

I examined four volumes of Journal of Agricultural Science, and although it is published six times a year, not all volumes were complete; a total of 21 issues were available. I surveyed articles in the ‘Crops and Soils’ section only, totaling 95 articles in all. Only thirteen of these articles dealt with agricultural matters applicable to the Jamaican or social-majority world, in climatic, economic, soils, or floral/faunal contexts. None of the articles I saw addressed Jamaica specifically; however several of these articles could apply to Jamaican farmers or agricultural researchers.

Four volumes of Outlooks in Pest Management were also available on the shelves. A typical issue format consists of an editorial; short research articles (3-4 pages) dealing with

178 legislation, reports on meetings/conferences, policies set by national governments, and specific crop/pest/regional issues; ‘Research and Development News,’ regulatory news, industry/company news (mergers, acquisitions, sales/profits, collaborations) and a calendar of events, along with occasional commentary, book reviews, and the like. For the purposes of this project, I surveyed a total of 135 items in the ‘research articles’ category, though I did take note of several items in other categories. What this survey revealed was telling.

While several articles presented ecologically sound advice such as the need to take account of beneficial arthropods in controlling insects, new developments that reduced water contamination by pesticides, and one even-handed explanation of the objectives and benefits of organic agriculture, the majority of material seen in this survey took a quite different position.

Chemicals, and pesticides in particular, were presented as absolute necessities; organic agriculture was being ‘oversold’. Genetically modified (GM) crops were repeatedly valorized as the best approach within which to apply integrated pest management (IPM). Of the 135 articles examined, only ten (7.4%) featured IPM and used the term (three additional articles addressed the topic or practice but did not refer to the name or acronym); most of these dealt with social- minority agricultural contexts such as the US, Canada, Europe, or Australia. Only two of these articles (1.5%) applied to social-majority contexts. Four articles (3 percent) mentioned organic agriculture, and two of these were critical or dismissive. Two articles therefore (1.5 percent) offered information about practices, made recommendations for implemention, or were otherwise positive regarding organic agriculture.

This journal was originally published by the Royal Society of Chemistry, so the pro- chemical and pro-technology orientations are not surprising (Research Information Ltd. 2010).

The point to be made, however, is that this journal and the Journal of Agricultural Science reflect

179 the ‘knowledge that counts’ in agriculture, or at least pest management, for the majority of researchers, students, and faculty at UWI and therefore shape the Foucauldian 'regime of truth' within which Jamaican agriculture is situated. UWI is one of the most influential institutions in the Caribbean for providing education to those becoming extension agents, Ministry workers, and agricultural advisors and researchers; both these publications – admittedly, only two out of several dozen, but typical based on my visual survey of what was available – do not accurately reflect the Jamaican or wider social-majority agricultural context. As an interviewee involved in a pro-organic NGO said to me in an email communication,

This so-called modern agriculture that is being promoted was not developed from any local studies, but were adopted from other countries and agro-ecosystems and simply imposed on Jamaica without any regard for the difference in socioeconomic conditions and the more fragile nature of island ecosystems like Jamaica. The ‘modern’ agriculture was merely a recipe to be followed by farmers without an understanding of the nature of the agro-ecosystem, the interaction of the various organisms that make up that community and the impact the inputs required by these ‘modern’ production methods would have on the ecosystem in the medium to long-term.

In a manner that Beckford (1999) would immediately recognize, the agricultural techniques that are associated with the metropoles are superior, due to their gloss of scientific modern approach, and their moving away from the disorderly 'bush knowledge' of slaves and ex-slaves scraping out meager livings on marginal hillsides.

5.4 Efficiency and competitiveness

Along with technology/chemical use, another common thread in the discursive fabric that dismisses smallholder agriculture winds around the twinned notions of efficiency and competitiveness. Because of the backwardness of Jamaican smallholder farmers described above, their agriculture is inefficient, which in turn makes it not competitive in the context of a

180 global economy that is very much based on competitiveness. As discussed in Chapter 1, the idea of 'the economy' was constructed only in the mid-twentieth century (Mitchell 2002), and this construction in turn rationalizes competition and thus competitiveness. Polanyi’s (2001) views of markets as places of social as well as economic exchange and of economic life as embedded within a society are far cries from the conceptualization of ‘the economy’ as a kind of vast

Darwinist gladitorial arena in which various national economies are struggling against each other for supremacy/survival. In the latter, the ideas of efficiency that lead to maximized competetiveness trump nearly any other ends towards which economic life might be bent.

The characterization of smallholder agriculture as inefficient and uncompetitive is applied to many social-majority contexts by multilateral agencies (Golden and Knudson 1990;

Byerlee 1998; FAO 2004; World Bank 2007) as well as to Jamaica in particular (Ministry of

Agriculture 2002, 2003; Jamaica Agriculture Sub-Sector Strategy 2009; Clarke 2012). Writing about Belize, Medina (1998) describes the manner in which in the wake of the Soviet Union’s disintegration and the end of the Cold War, economic efficiency leading to greater competitiveness supplanted democracy as the means of reaching the ends of national

‘development’ – itself a concept coming from the mid-twentieth century, according to Esteva

(1992). A common way to achieve efficiency and competitiveness according to the neoliberal ideologies current since the early 1980s is through privatization. For Belize, not only were private investors valorized but the ‘privatize to be competitive’ impetus reached the point that the interests of private investors were framed in government rhetoric as corresponding to the country’s interests, according to Medina (1998, 32). Studies and commentaries regarding

Jamaican agriculture either describe the need for further/accelerated privatization or laud the

181 degree to which it has been accomplished (Singh, Rankine, and Seepersad 2005; Tufton 2008;

Jamaican Sub-sector Strategy 2009; Clarke 2012).

As mentioned above, many of these discourses overlap and mutually reinforce each other.

One example of the operation of overlapping discourses of modernity, expertise, efficiency, privatization, and competitiveness in agriculture can be found in a 1994 pamphlet produced for a

8 Jamaican audience by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture (IICA). This pamphlet exhorts farmers and agribusiness investors to take up what the author calls 'Tropical

Boutique Agriculture' as a pathway to profit generation. After an introductory page, the second page shows a diagram describing “The International Environment,” utilizing simple images of a satellite dish, a computer (1980s-vintage), and an iconic picture of an atom (Fig. 5.10). The text beneath this diagram states (emphases mine):

As illustrated above, inevitably Jamaica as an open-trade nation will be affected by multi-faceted global developments – unfolding within a technological revolution, difficult to comprehend, worse to keep abreast with. Indeed, informatics, genetic engineering, alternative energy, micro-electronics, new materials are some of the main elements that comprise the emerging technological revolution – a high technological fantasy. And thus it would require the country to re-assess its technological, economic and political positions and devise a consequent strategy (Reyes-Pacheco 1994, 2).

Awkward sentence construction aside, several elements of the passage are worth noting.

First, Jamaica's position as an “open-trade nation” is presented as a clear statement about 'the way the world is,' along with the inevitability of Jamaica being affected by global events in an equally-inevitable “technological revolution.” This technological revolution is framed for the

Jamaican audience as being, prima facie, beyond them, and in this brave new world, it is

8 Reinforcing the association with these discourses, the banner on the US home page of the IICA has the phrase "sowing innovation to harvest prosperity" below the organization name. 182 imperative to 'get with the program' and make the appropriate choice of course of action at the coming crossroads.

That this new world order is a taken-for-granted and self-evident fact is amplified a little further on. Presenting the recommendations as being apolitical and concerned with presenting farmers with viable income-generating options, Reyes-Pacheco (1994) states, “This paper does not query the nature of the new international trade arrangements, and how trade relations and world agricultural trade are being delineated. Instead, it recapitulates the status of Jamaica's

Figure 5.10. Schematic illustration of ‘The International Environment’ within which Jamaica will operate. (Source: Scanned from Reyes-Pacheco 1994)

183 agriculture and exports” (4). However, these ‘world-as-it-is’ conditions did not come into being in a vacuum; they are all the result of decisions, choices, and policies that are avowedly political, and result in different impacts for some groups compared to others. Further, the stated mission of the IICA revolves around agricultural integration, modernization, agribusiness and commercialization, and preparation for "a new agricultural revolution, one that will be built on a new technological paradigm as well as on new market demands and food chains" (IICA 2012, 6).

These activities are all inherently political, not least because they demonstrate assumptions (or at least make claims) regarding a particular path: promoting trade (integration), agribusiness,

9 commercialization, and modernization will benefit all.

The status of Jamaica’s agriculture is recapitulated towards the end of the document in the conclusion, and consists largely of familiar impediments and constraints: “lack of economies-of-scale, high costs, inadequate technological development, land tenure problems, praedial larceny, inappropriate marketing systems, low production volumes, inferior quality and lack of farmer’s entrepreneurship” (Reyes-Pacheco 1994, 15). Although this statement is presented as resulting from an apolitical and objective assessment, its claims reflect otherwise.

Several of these issues are real enough, but they are offered as occurring without any reference to their causes, which are far from apolitical. For example, the “land tenure problems” stem at least in part from elite land ownership patterns that connect to Jamaica’s history as a plantation society and lack of effective redistribution strategies (Stringer, Bruce, and Stanfield 1989; Keith and

Keith 1992; Sofer and Dori 1993; Zoomers 2002; Weis 2006a), while “inappropriate marketing

9 To be fair, in the same document the IICA also claims in their mission to advance work in the areas of food security, natural resources and climate change, and “rural well-being,” though this particular document does not describe specifics regarding how this last term in envisioned. 184 systems” can also be linked to the dualism in Jamaican agriculture described in Chapter 3, the poverty of producers, lack of government funds to maintain or repair rural infrastructure such as roads due to high levels of debt service payments, and the dismantling in the 1980s of the government-sponsored Agricultural Marketing Corporation during the pro-‘Washington

Consensus’ administration of Edward Seaga (IICA 1988; Weis 2006b).

The remainder of the pamphlet describes the then-contemporary state of Jamaican crop production and export figures, focusing on traditional exports of bananas, sugar, coffee, cocoa, citrus, and pimento, and determines that the data “present a scenario that requires urgent and decisive corrective policy measures” (Reyes-Pacheco 1994, 11). The author then proposes a solution: an emphasis on non-traditional export commodities such as lime, papaya, mango, and other fruit, ackee, ginger, breadfruit, squash, root crops, spices and peppers, exotic flowers and foliage. Leaving aside 1) the question of whether or not this represents a good or operable idea,

2) whether a significant export market actually exists for some commodities (e.g., ackee, breadfruit, dasheen), or 3) whether this proposed program could truly compete with existing

(and often subsidized) economy-of-scale monocrop production by large agribusiness concerns

(e.g., squash, lime, avocado), what is striking about the pamphlet is its use of language.

This pamphlet contains approximately eight and a half pages of printed text out of a total of 25 pages (not including references); the remainder are figures and tables. The printed area of a full page is 12.5 by 14 cm (4.88 by 5.5 inch), with an average of eight words per line and thirty- six lines of text per page – an average per page total of just under 290 words. In this short document, the words ‘competitive,’ 'competitiveness,’ ‘competition,’ ‘competing,’ or ‘compete’ appear twenty-eight times (sometimes multiple times in the same sentence). The terms

‘technological’ or ‘technology’ appear twelve times. ‘Export’ is used in association with words

185 like ‘outward,’ ‘dynamic,’ ‘wider,’ and ‘freer’ on six occasions, in comparison with negative associations with ‘inward,’ ‘closed,’ and ‘restricted.’

The one page of ‘Final Comments’ contains ten sentences, and uses the terms

‘competitiveness/competitive,’ ‘productivity,’ or ‘technology/technological’ a total of ten times in seven of them. The final lines of the pamphlet declare the reality of the private sector's significance:

Needless to emphasize that in this export-growth oriented economic environment, the Private Sector is to play a pivotal role. As the private sector flourishes and develops efficiently, the government is to recognize their needs and re-define the Public Sector's role. This requires a fundamental review of its institutional structure and organizational operations, but also for the Private Sector to meet the challenges and gear itself to compete efficiently, given a market-driven economic scenario (Reyes-Pacheco 1994, 15; capitals in original).

Why will the private sector flourish and develop efficiently? The question is not necessary to ask; it is an accepted fact, part of the regime of truth that modernist neoliberal discourses shape and by which in turn are reinforced. The public sector will be the party to do the reorganization and redefining in the taken-for-granted, world-as-it-is competitive market economy.

5.5. Material Effects: The Landscape as Discursively Produced

The circulation of these discourses of modernity, technology, efficiency, and competition interact to produce the agricultural landscape of southern St Elizabeth parish through their articulation in the practices of farmers. As use of technology is one of the most significant aspects of the operations of modernist discourse, the primary characteristic of these landscapes results from the application of agro-chemicals. An American expat who lives in the area and founded a (now-moribund) organic farmers' association said that the area

186 suffers from...tremendous environmental degradation, health degradation, and all of the ills that come from non-sustainable practices, from the farm store down to the farmer who is using the product. It's all kind of in the same pipeline, like the seeds and the sprays and everything are generally from the same company...many of which are banned elsewhere...it's really bad in this region.

In both the previous and present chapters, comments from interviews demonstrated that using a wide array of chemicals at the first instance is currently the normal practice, even if that was not always the case and at the same time that farmers frequently identified the high costs of these as a significant challenge. Concerns about environmental and health impacts of agrochemical application have been voiced in social-minority settings such as the United States,

Canada, and Europe; for places such as Jamaica and similar countries the situation may be even more problematic. Relatively low levels of farmer literacy can increase influence of discourses' operation and circulation in creating the taken-for-granted ‘how it is done’ in farming. An article in the Jamaica Daily Gleaner did not give figures, but indicated that illiteracy levels were very high among farmers above the age of 40 (Pink 2011); citing data from the Statistical Institute of

Jamaica, the Tropical Farmer's Almanac (2011) stated that around 30 percent of Jamaican farmers are illiterate and the average age of a Jamaican farmer is in the 50s. While it may be argued that these conditions might make many farmers less skeptical or questioning of the guidance provided by highly educated experts regarding chemical use, another point is beyond controversy: farmers who cannot read or cannot read well are not likely to follow complicated application guidelines closely.

Research going back to the 1990s indicated high levels of some toxic elements in soils such as arsenic and cadmium, along with other heavy metals, in areas of Jamaica (Lalor 1995;

Lalor et al. 1998; Lalor et al. 2004). A story in the Jamaica Observer indicates that research

187 currently under way suggests that contamination levels of soil in areas of St Elizabeth and nearby areas of Manchester parish are so high that no remediation is possible, and that that some fertilizers are a potential source of the contamination (Tomlinson 2012).

An interview with the lead researcher in the summer of 2012 both confirmed this and revealed further insights into the issue. Arsenic, lead, mercury, and cadmium appeared in soils at

10 multiple sites in areas that had been mined for bauxite. He said that one of the concerns was that cadmium in particular is a significant contributor to prostate cancer, and that in certain areas of Jamaica the incidence of this cancer was very high. When asked specifically about the potential link mentioned in the newspaper article, he elaborated:

So what I proposed...is that the problem could be the high incidence of using chemicals like probably insecticide or even some of the herbicides because some of these chemicals, they do have some of those elements...so I suspect that further investigation should be done for us to look at the chemicals. The other factors I recommend is that some of the fertilizers that we have been using, they could also be contaminated with some of those elements, because what has happened is that we have been taking fertilizer from several places...we had gotten some fertilizer from...where was it now? China. But it was fertilizer mixed with feces, human feces, organic waste, another chemical and it blended with all of that...it's an ideal medium whereby some of these elements can be transported to the soil or to your water supply, so I think that the fertilizer and the chemicals could be a contributing factor...[t]hese are areas that need further investigation...we import all the raw material for fertilizer, right? And they get blended here...

While this research focuses on the presence of particular elements and hypothesizes as to the contributing factors, other evidence points to the over- or misuse of agro-chemicals. A table in an

Appendix of a 2003 Ministry of Agriculture Development Strategy indicated that ten different farms sampled in 1998-1999 in south St Elizabeth (for soil pH, nitrogen percentage, and parts per

10 These sites were selected through a random distribution process. Many areas where bauxite had been mined have been reclaimed, but according to this researcher some of these efforts were “not anything to talk about,” while no reclamation has been done in other mined areas. 188 million of phosphorus and potassium) showed high nutrient levels due to over-fertilizing; while both nitrogen and phosphorus were frequently high, all ten sampled farms showed potassium levels that were “high to excessive” (Ministry of Agriculture 2003, 184).

Academic research is not the only source for such information. In the course of our interview, the manager of a farm store told me “the problem with our farmers, I think they're overusing...especially herbicides...you find a lot of farmers use a lot of fertilizer here...yeah, they overuse, but, ‘it's fertilizer’...” At the same time, this person started the answer to my ‘beginning farmer simulation’ (see above) by telling me how to ‘prepare’ the land by using non-selective herbicides: “First you would need Gramoxone® or RoundUp®, land preparation, right?” A handout from the AgroGrace farm store of 'bullet points' for growing cabbage advises farmers to

“apply Dual Gold® at transplanting to suppress weed growth” while another for growing cantaloupe tells farmers to control weeds by 1) preparing the land properly, 2) spraying with pre- emergence weedicide fourteen days before planting, 3) using selective weedicide if weeds appear, and 4) mulching. A few lines later, under a heading that reads ‘Steps to Successful

Cantaloupe Production,’ item number seven out of ten says to “use herbicide except in area covered by plastic.”

In local parlance, this practice is referred to as ‘burning’ the land. Often a plot or field currently bearing is sprayed with weedkiller if what is being grown is fetching a low price, so that farmers can put something else in hope that they can ‘catch a crop’ (Figure 5.11); in other cases grass or other undesired vegetation are killed off in preparation for planting. In either case, a director of a Jamaican NGO identified it as a common problem. In a climatic setting like

Jamaica when many items can be grown year-round, this means that at least some fields are

189 sprayed with nonselective herbicides multiple times a year. In south St Elizabeth, the relative aridity makes the accumulation of these chemicals in the soil likely.

Figure 5.11. Melon patch 'burned' by weedkiller in preparation for planting alternative crop, June 2012. Photo by the author.

Some farmers take this technique a step further. One farmer interviewed in 2012 had a section of his field that was brown, and had obviously been ‘burned’ with herbicide. I asked him about it and he said he had just done it awhile ago. I asked if he was going to put something else in that spot, and he indicated he had beet root planned for there. My next question was how long he had to wait to plant after spraying, and he replied “four to six days (the actual recommendation is two weeks), but I plant it yesterday and spray it today.” In other words, this farmer planted what he was going to grow to sell in the ground one day, and then sprayed the area with weedkiller! A different and significantly younger farmer with whom I spoke earlier that

190 same day had a field of tomatoes that were still bearing, but he said he was “going to prepare it now for melon...just use the spray, get some more grass and sprinkle it on.” A little later in the conversation as he told me about the repeated and varied chemical applications, I asked if he ever worried about the impacts on the vegetables themselves or the land underneath. He said,

“you got to do what you got to do, but I heard that the, too much of the weed kill is not good for the soil, that's what they say, so I'm not sure about that, still...yeah, you have to use it.”

This practice is quite different from what a farmer in his seventies who now practices organic farming means from ‘preparing the land.’ For him, this term means cutting grass to use for mulch, then digging or turning weeds, and finally covering the area with grass mulch to protect it from desiccation by the sun and wind while it 'rests' before planting. He had been a

‘conventional’ farmer for most of his life, only starting to use organic practices around 2005.

When I asked him about his reasons for making the change, he said that he used to get skin rashes and other problems while working, so when an American expat and a local farmer teamed up to start an 'organic farmers’ association’in the area, he joined and said, “I see it can work out when you understand what you're doing.” Echoing what another organic farmer (around sixty years old) told me about his belief that chemical use in agriculture is a main source of sickness, he also indicated that he thought that “people [were] getting sick from the food they eat,” at least in part because of the agricultural practices of many people in the area. Despite guidelines that say chemical use should be scaled back in the weeks before harvest, he said “people don't realize it, but the man just spray the thing [vegetable crop in the field], and the higgler come and buy it right away! Money making, you know? To the world – is just money, mon!”

Potentially dangerous practices abound in the study area and in other parts of Jamaica, and likely in the wider social-majority world. In some cases the cause may be limited literacy on

191 the part of farmers trying to follow directions, in some cases misunderstandings of best/safe practices, and in other cases insufficient financial resources require the cutting of corners. For example, page 76 of the Tropical Farmer's Almanac (Figure 5.12) is devoted to guidelines for safe and effective use of pesticides. Leaving aside the likelihood that a significant fraction of farmers would not be able to read these guidelines, which represent a good collection of both 'do' and 'don't' recommendations, this one page (and the next, which addresses home-made organic pesticidepreparations) is buried in last pages of the publication, just before a recipe and the crossword and sudoku puzzles (in addition, the European features of the cartoon figures displayed on the page bear strikingly little resemblance to most Jamaican farmers). A display by the Pesticide Control Authority at the Denbigh Agricultural Show in 2011 offered detailed information and featured a mannequin outside showing the proper gear for farmers applying pesticides to their fields (Figure 5.13). For many who live in social-majority world settings, this display is nothing remarkable and many have seen agricultural and infrastructure workers wearing similar gear as they sprayed fields, power line clearings, recreation areas, and the like with the often neurotoxin-based chemicals. However, such equipment is not common among smallholder farmers in the study area or among those who buy a sprayer and ‘sub-contract’ their spraying labor out to farmers as a way to generate an income (Figure 5.14).

An elderly man whose son is a farmer told me:

it's bad for their skin...they will spray in that clothes that they use, and have it on for the whole day! And they will leave and go into the bar and go buy beer and drink same way, hand don't wash...the other day my son was doing some spraying, and when him come, the spray pump him put it down here and gone straight in! I tell him no, but you know these young people, they don’t listen...him gone straight in and just done spray. Now when I used to be here and I go to the agriculture meeting, they always have some people come and they tell you that when you done spray, the clothes that you have on you, supposed to have a overall and when you finish spray, you take it off and have a little store room outside you keep it in

192 there...the young generation, boy them hard to deal with – they don’t listen. When you tell them, they say 'is foolishness' and as the spray done and leave the field, straight to shop...drink the liquor, no, hand don’t wash (laughs)! They are hard to deal with...

Aside from just being 'hard to deal with,' a RADA official said workers often do not use protective gear for economic reasons. If the man – again, the assumption is always that the worker or the farmer is male – is an employee of a larger farmer, that farmer would be unlikely to provide the gear, and “he would tell you he doesn't have the money to buy the gear himself.”

The same applies to one of the many independent farmers in the area barely scraping by due to the combination of high costs and low prices.

Fields and plots around south St Elizabeth contain many material reminders of the operation of modernist discourses as exemplified by agro-chemical use. Home trash pickup is not common outside of well-off areas; one of the most frequent techniques for disposing trash is burning. The empty plastic bottles and containers that appear in neat rows in the farm store

(Figure 5.3) often lie on the verges of agricultural plots, usually but not always capped with a lid

(Figures 5.15-5.20). These lie in semi-permanent bottle dumps, are burned with other trash, or are periodically collected and bagged, then brought to a local trash dropoff where they are brought to a landfill. The chemical-based agricultural practices so prevalent in the area are therefore extend far beyond its borders, potentially into air, soil, and groundwater many kilometers away.

193 Figure 5.12. Page scan from the Tropical Farmers' Almanac describing 'Rules for effective use of pesticides.' Used by permission (NOTE: Text in the image is not intended to be readable; the image is for visual reference only). 194

Figure 5.13. The Image. Pesticide Control Authority display booth, Denbigh Agricultural Show, July 2011. Photo by the author (NOTE: Text on sign not intended to be readable; image is for visual reference only).

Figure 5.14. The Reality. Agricultural worker spraying, Southfield, June 2012. Photo by the author. 195

Figure 5.15. Agro-chemical litter in farmer field, 2011. Photo by the author (NOTE: In this and the remaining photos in the chapter, text on labels cannot be enlarged enough to meet reproduction requirements, therefore photos are for visual reference only).

Figure 5.16. Agro-chemical litter in farmer field, 2012. Photo by the author.

196

Figure 5.17. Agro-chemical litter in farmer field, 2012. Photo by the author.

Figure 5.18 Agro-chemical litter in farmer field, 2012. Photo by the author. 197

Figure 5.19. Agro-chemical litter in farmer field, 2012. Photo by the author.

Figure 5.20. Agro-chemical litter in farmer field, 2012. Photo by the author. 198

5.6 Conclusion

This chapter has described various ways that discourses associated with modernity operate in the context of Jamaica and south St Elizabeth parish to produce farmers who occupy certain agricultural subject positions, specifically. These include framing smallholder farmers as backward, valorizing technology, and promoting a productionist mindset that rationalizes and naturalizes competition and therefore requires maximized levels of efficiency. The contributions of advertising, government policy making, and scientific research in maintaining these discursive elements were outlined. Operations of the contemporary global political economy were introduced in examining imports of chemical components of fertilizer, suggesting that individual farmers have supplanted the declining traditional agro-export producers as consumers. The chapter then offered examples of how these discourses are operationalized in the practice of agriculture by smallholders (and others involved in farming), primarily through the use of agrochemicals as an unquestioned necessity. These discourses and the subject farmer positions resulting from them combine with the climate, soil, and topographic features to co-produce the agricultural landscape of south St Elizabeth, in which farmers compete with each other for meager returns periodically overproducing the same commodities while being exhorted to

'increase production for greater profits.' The practices involved in their being 'modern farmers' has in some cases led to the literal embodying of those practices through external and possibly internal exposure to toxic chemicals and contaminated soils.

However, as is typically the case with hegemonic discourses, their hegemony is not total.

Sites and spaces of both active resistance and a more passive seeking of alternative paths exist in

199 many parts of Jamaica, including the study area. The following chapter describes some of these sites and spaces.

200 CHAPTER 6 ALTERNATIVE PATHS AND SITES OF RESISTANCE

6.1. Introduction

A crucial point regarding the operations of power in the work of both Gramsci and

Foucault is that power 'dominates incompletely.' The Gramscian concept of hegemony includes the possibility of subalterns coming together to shape or create a counter-hegemony, either in response to some crisis or as a result of political action (Gramsci 2001; Vanden 2007). As discussed in Chapter 1, primary contribution of Foucault to the ways power is conceptualizied is that power is not merely oppressive or 'negative,' it 'produces' as well, and this productive capacity of power not only creates spaces for resistance (Foucault 1982), but power's very existence produces resistance (Foucault 1990; Daghman 2011).

Three different drivers of alternative paths or their possibilities or 'sites' of resistance to the dominant discourses will be discussed in this chapter. The first is a category I will refer to as

'outside the system,' and consists of religious/philosophical/cultural traditions within Jamaica that hold positions counter to much of what has become conventional modern agriculture. The best examples of these are the influence of the Seventh Day Adventist Church and Rastafarianism, which despite their significant differences offer significant intersections in thought and belief regarding food and food production; however, they are parts of wider counter-discourses not specifically linked to farming and agriculture. The Maroon community at Accompong also fits into this grouping. The second category I will call 'within the system,' since it includes actors currently operating in various capacities within the agriculture sector. The final potential source of alternative paths or resistance may be surprising to some, as it is usually considered a driver of dominant disourses resulting in homogenizing globalization: tourism. No discussion of Jamaica that addresses any economic aspect can ignore this activity, and agriculture is no exception.

201 6.2. 'Outside' the Agro-system

The Seventh-Day Adventist Church (SDA) was founded in 1844 during the 'Second

Great Awakening' of the mid-nineteenth century in the town of Washington, New Hampshire prior to formal organization and relocation to Battle Creek, Michigan in 1860 (Adventist.org

2013a, firstsdachurch.org n.d.). Missionary outreach brought the denomination to Jamaica and early in the twentieth century, the Jamaican Conference was received into the general fellowship

(Jamaica Union Conference 2010). The denomination spread widely through the early to mid twentieth century, and Jamaica today has over 220,000 members of SDA congregations in a population of just over 2.7 million (roughly 8 percent of the population), giving it one of the

34 highest per capita memberships in the world (O'Reggio 2008). Nearly every community in the

35 study area and countless others throughout Jamaica has an SDA Church.

36 In addition to familiar basic elements of Protestant doctrine, SDA beliefs include several differences. First, as the name indicates, is the observance of Saturday rather than Sunday as the Sabbath and its reservation as a day of rest. More importantly for the purposes of this project is the injunction to consume a healthy diet: “...because our bodies are the temples of the

Holy Spirit, we are to care for them intelligently. Along with adequate exercise and rest, we are to adopt the most healthful diet possible...” (Adventist.org 2013b). This means following the

34 By comparison, the US has around a million SDA members in a population of approximately 315 million (roughly 0.3 percent of the population) , according to the 2010 Adventist World Report (World Church Statistics 2010). 35 Methodist and Baptist denominations are also very common; many larger communities often have Anglican churches as well. The Anglican Church was the overwhelming denomination of the planter/elites during slavery. 36 Unless otherwise indicated, information in this section of the chapter comes from the SDA website, www.adventist.org

202 kosher dietary laws in the Old Testament; in addition, the denomination promotes vegetarianism as the best path to overall health. According to the SDA Dietetic Association, “for more than 130 years, Seventh Day Adventists have practiced a vegetarian dietary lifestyle because of their belief in the holistic nature of humankind. Whatever is done in eating and drinking should honor and glorify God and preserve the health of the body, mind, and spirit” (Seventh-Day Adventist

Dietetic Association n.d.). Thus, following ‘correct’ practices in diet not only is beneficial on an individual level, but is a way to bring about God's kingdom through earthy practice (du puis

2007)

Another tenet of SDA belief involves stewardship of the earth and care for the environment. As the Church’s official website puts it, SDA members believe they “are God's stewards, entrusted by Him with…the blessings of the earth and its resources. We are responsible to Him for their proper use” (Adventist.org 2013b). The notion of ‘stewardship’ is not entirely unproblematic, as it has historically referred to a ‘dominion over the Earth’ which was both highly anthropocentric and androcentric, rooted as it was in the biblical context of ‘steward’ as a

37 (male) master of the household, which was his possession (Palmer 2006). Nonetheless, concepts of stewardship frequently cojoin with a sense of responsibility towards the environment as God’s creation. A number of Christian denominations and organizations have moved towards more ‘environmentalist’ positions after long periods of opposition due to millenarianist beliefs, the association of environmentalism with secularism, or other religious reasons (Kearns 1997;

Harden 2005; Billings and Samson 2012). The SDA Church has included this tenet from its genesis, however, and is also manifested in dietary practices that limit ecological damage and

37 Any of the essays that make up the collection from which the chapter for this point was taken (Berry (ed.) 2006) would provide good explications of this position; see especially pieces by Berry, Bauckham, Black, Reichenbach and Anderson, Southgate, Northcott, and Clifford. 203 levels of consumerism by promoting simple, less processed foods and vegetarianism as exemplars of a thoughtful, frugal, and healthy lifestyle (Hartman 2011).

Education is another important value in the denomination's doctrine, and the SDA Church administers 26 high schools and preparatory schools in Jamaica – a total that might not seem large, except when considering Jamaica’s small size. Several of these schools are not SDA-only schools, but also take students from non-SDA households. Northern Caribbean University

(NCU) in Mandeville is another SDA institution; it serves over 5000 students and has three extension campuses in Kingston, Montego Bay, and Runaway Bay (Northern Caribbean

University 2012). Through this educational aspect of its mission, the core values of diet, health, and stewardship diffuse through a wider segment of the population than the active SDA membership.

Speaking with a researcher at NCU whose work revealed potentially dangerous levels of toxins in soils in several communities in the parishes of Manchester and St Elizabeth, I asked about next steps from his discovery. He said that a meeting was held with the Minister of

Agriculture, and a team was supposed to form to take over aspects of research in these contaminated areas to evaluate the situation and develop a plan, but he had not heard any more in several months. He said,

I have not heard anything more [chuckle], so I don’t know…whether it is going to die a natural death, but what is going to happen is that we are going to be doing more research and we are going to be quite vocal about this because we are a private institution. We are not funded by the government…we are not obligated to 38 political things so we are going to do more research because it’s a community. We are in a community, and we have to ensure that our surrounding is taken care of. Interviewer: And that also ties in with the wider SDA…

38 Of course, they are engaged in highly ‘political things’ through the initial research and its pursuit in the face of possible government inaction! 204 Ideology. Or belief, or doctrine…all of this is a part the process because the funding of the research came from the university so we are going to be doing some more work with it. I think a paper should be published from this side of things…

The potential for the SDA influence in Jamaica affect the existing systems of agriculture may be limited on its own. However, the denomination’s basic beliefs reach a small but significant fraction of the population directly and a greater number through educational institutions; in a context of other voices calling for alternatives to the agro- industrial food system, this potential should not be discounted.

While the SDA Church is an import from the United States, several syncretic religious/

39 philosophical systems have a Jamaican genesis. Often these represent a 'blended' result ofcreolized Caribbean culture-building ( Besson 2002). Revival, pukumina/pocomania, myal, and obeah are all examples of spiritual/religious practices found both in Jamaica’s history and contemporary life that link Christian and African traditions along a ‘more-Christian-to-more-

African’ continuum. Another indigenous Jamaican syncretic religious philosophy that has gained far more attention worldwide than the others and moved from the realm of religious practice to a wider cultural expression is Rastafarianism, or simply Rastafari.

Rastafarianism is a collective term for an alternative African-centered set of religious and philosophical practices that developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. According to Barrett (1977), its origins lie in the emergence of 'Ethiopianism' among slaves in the Americas during the eighteenth century, as a parallel to the Jewish idea of Zion or Jerusalem, since "Africa (as a geographic entity) was just about obliterated from their minds. Their only vision of a homeland was the biblical Ethiopia. It was the vision of a golden past...that revitalized the hope of an

39 This term should not be taken in an overly-structural sense. 205 40 oppressed people" (75). Another influence came with Marcus Mosiah Garvey's establishment of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in Jamaica in 1914; UNIA was an organization dedicated to self-reliance and self-determination among black people and thus offered a counterhegemonic possibility within a historical context of European domination

(Lewis 1998; Jamaica Information Service 2001). In the 1920s, Garvey ‘prophesied’ the coronation of Haile Selassie as Emperor of Ethiopia, an event that upon its occurrence in 1930 galvanized a somewhat disparate Ethiopianist/Rastafari movement (Chevannes 1994; Murrell

1998; Besson 2008).

Traditional tenets of Rasta ideology and practice include belief in: black people's beauty and divinity, Haile Selassie I as an earthly incarnation of God/Jah (Selassie's pre-ascencion name was Ras Tafari) and a black Messiah, repatriation to Ethiopia (originally intended literally, now often viewed culturally or symbolically), a coming apocalyptic fall of ‘Babylon’ (corrupt society, originally white society), a post-fall reign of black people with Jah, and eschewing to the greatest degree possible the corruption of Babylon; one of the important ways in which this last is manifested is through living ‘ital,’ meaning ‘natural’ (Barrett 1988; Chevannes 1994; Tafari-

Ama 1998; Besson 2008). Edmonds (1998) explains it thus: “One of the ills of Babylon, according to Rastas, is its departure from naturalness and its commitment to artificiality. Rastas want to escape the artificiality and return to nature. Thus, the Rastafarian ideal proscribes the use

41 of synthetic materials and chemically treated foods” (354). Many of the Rastas with whom I have spoken, young and old alike, verbalize a preference for organic foods and most follow

40 Marcus Garvey was born in St Ann's Bay, St Ann in 1887. As mentioned above, Garvey i one of seven Jamaicans designated 'National Heroes.'

41 Edmonds (1998) points out that this remains an 'ideal' due to the economic circumstances of most Rastas. 206 42 vegetarianism to the greatest degree possible. Perhaps one of the most familiar aspects of

Rastafarian practice is using ganja (marijuana) as a sacramental means of achieving higher consciousness through meditation, but the practice varies widely. Some Rastas smoke truly prodigious quantities, others are more moderate, and a few do not engage in the practice.

The influence of Rasta ideals on wider Jamaican society would have remained very limited had Rastas and Rastafari not undergone a type of ‘rehabilitation’ from the early days of the movement. Garvey differed with the Rastafari on matters such as the divinity of Selassie, their ritual use of ganja (marijuana), and their rejection of the material benefits of technology while agreeing with their anticolonialist and black nationalist orientations (Lewis 1998).

Chevannes (1994) said that while Garvey knew the Rastafari, “his attitude toward them...bordered on scorn” (109). Following the ‘plantation society’ pattern described by

Beckford (1999) of according higher status to that which is closer to the metropole, the African- centered 'natural living' approach of Rastafari was anathema to middle class, upper-class, and aspiring Jamaicans. While Garveyite and other early Pan-Africanist movements often included educated or middle-class elements, “the Rastafari were mainly from the poorest and most dispossessed elements of the sub-proletariat” (Phillips 1988, 113). This difference served to keep them on the periphery of Jamaican society, of which in any case they were highly critical and largely rejected.

42 Some Rastas do eat fish fairly regularly, however. Similar to kosher and halal practices, pork is considered unclean, and is the worst of the ‘deaders’ (meats), but if it is all that is available, it should be eaten instead of going hungry. Rastas apply a ‘sliding scale’ to behaviors based on separation from what is ‘best.’ One Rasta put it thus: “Pork is the worst, then beef, then chicken, then fish. Pure veggie is best. Same with travel...worst is plane, then train, then car, then bicycle. Best is pure foot.” These are guidelines for living, not ‘sins’ in the common Christian sense. 207 As a result of both Rastafari beliefs/practices and the strata of society from which they predominantly came, Rastas were often persecuted. An early attempt at Rastafari self- government at the Pinnacle commune, established by 1940 in the hills of St Catherine, was destroyed by colonial police authorities in 1954 (Lewis 1988; Besson 1998, 2002), and subsequently an urban Rasta community grew in a shantytown in the west Kingston area called

‘Back o' Wall.’ This in turn was destroyed and bulldozed by post-independence Jamaican

43 authorities in the early 1960s, and the Rastafari dispersed to other Kingston neighborhoods and

Jamaican rural areas (Waters 1999). With their anti-Establishment leanings, dreadlocks and matted beards, and fiery Old Testament-style Jeremiads on the corruption of the society around them, they were widely despised by 'mainstream' Jamaicans who made up that society. Rogers

(1978) recorded Jamaicans characterizing Rastafari as "a nuisance and an embarrassment to the

Jamaican people" (9), for example. One person is primarily responsible for turning Rastafari from being viewed by many Jamaicans as religious fanatics, dirty unkempt criminals, and

'primitives' who rejected modern civilization and wanted to turn the clock back to biblical times.

That person was Robert Nesta Marley.

Born in rural St Ann but having grown up in Kingston, Bob Marley became a first-order superstar of popular music in the mid-1970s and is credited with bringing reggae music to a worldwide audience. Even three decades after his death from cancer in 1981, he remains perhaps the most famous Jamaican of all time. A singer of pop-style songs in the 1960s with the vocal group The Wailers, Marley became involved in Rastafari as a young man in Kingston. By the time he and the group began to become known outside of Jamaica, playing first to the Caribbean

43 According to the Gleaner and other local sources, this area was ‘planted’ with JLP loyalists and became the ‘garrison community’ near Coronation Market now known as Tivoli Gardens, site of ‘The Battle of West Kingston’ in 2011 over the extradition to the US on gunrunning charges of its ‘don,’ Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke. 208 expatriate community in the UK, he and other band members had begun sprouting dreadlocks and adding Rasta imagery and teachings to their songs (Barrow and Dalton 2001, Marley and

Jones 2004); this is not the origin of what was called ‘cultural’ music themes in reggae, but is largely responsible for reggae being seen as a means of expression that is ‘roots-oriented’ and political instead of as sweet pop melodies sung in a Jamaican style. In order to reach the burgeoning and maturing rock audience in the US, Island Records’ Chris Blackwell shaped the group as ‘Bob Marley and the Wailers,’ since the ‘band’ format was the expected one; the band

44 became a massive international success.

The reggae music of Bob Marley was a mix of extremely catchy hooks, militancy, Rasta reasoning, protest, persistence in the face of oppression, and love songs layered with the characteristic Jamaican rhythm and tropical imagery, and played by arguably some of the best musicians in the country. The combination brought Rastafari to the attention of a worldwide public and piqued interest in Rasta philosophy. Many of the elements of Rasta teachings found a receptive audience in a segment of the white, middle-class youth of the US and Britain, even though many of these listeners were very much part of the ‘Babylon’ against which those

45 teachings railed; some of these young people began to go to Jamaica in search of the Rasta ideal. Dreadlocks became a sign of resistance and belief in an alternative view of living, even among white American teenagers in the suburbs. On my first trip to Jamaica as a tourist in 1982,

44 However, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, the other two originals from the vocal trio, had left because of this change; BM&W had become a standard ‘frontman-and-band’ by this time, which worked for the album-buying and concert tour-attending American and European publics. 45 The copius marijuana smoking likely did not hurt, either, given the context of the late 1970s. Though it did not have as hard-edged Rastafari tone as some of his Jamaican compatriots, Marley’s music arguably opened a door for these artists to gain wider audiences and acceptance as well. It’s hard to imagine some ‘harder’ artists like Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer, Burning Spear, or Black Uhuru playing to sold-out US arenas without Marley’s pioneering success. 209 I was taken aback by the level of approbrium I saw and heard leveled at Rastas, and this after

Marley’s death and his being posthumously awarded the National Order of Merit. A few years later, one of his songs, ‘One Love,’ was being used by the Jamaican Tourist Board in a popular ad campaign to attract visitors to the country. A more recent ad showed a large dreadlocked smiling Rasta carrying a laughing white child on his shoulder along a beach (Cooper 2004), and currently a ‘Rastafari Indigenous Village’ has been constructed near Montego Bay to allow tourists from Shaker Heights, Westchester, or Dublin to stay over and have the ‘Rasta experience’

(Jamaica Daily Gleaner 2013).

From being a marginalized and widely despised group following beliefs and practicing traditions thought to be at best ludicrous or at worst dangerous, Rastafari has become, at least on some level, suffused into a broader and celebrated aspect of Jamaican identity through a combination of 1) reexamination and reevaluation due to the impacts of relocation diffusion

46 shaping attitudes about Rastafari abroad, and 2) commodification. Therefore even more so than the 'imported' Seventh Day Adventist beliefs, the 'home grown' food practices of the

Rastafari both reflect a conscious, intentional resistance and have a more general circulation in

Jamaican society, therefore presenting greater possibilities as the basis of an alternative to the current modes of agricultural practice in Jamaica.

46 In a pavilion at the 2011 Denbigh Agricultural Show I suddenly found myself face to face with Minister of Agriculture Robert Montague, a press entourage with him. As cameras clicked, he engaged me in a brief conversation – as a white American, I was not a typical Denbigh attendee, and made a good press opportunity – about my origins and interests in Jamaica. I was there with two Jamaican farmer friends, one of whom is a tall Rasta in his mid-50s. While speaking with the Minister, I referred to my friend and introduced him by name. Montague put his right hand on his chest, lowered his eyes, and made a small bow towards him, and intoned, “Rasta,” in a gesture of respect. This act would have been unthinkable from a government minister not too many years earlier. 210 One final ‘outside the system’ source of alternative paths in agriculture in Jamaica was brought up earlier: the Maroons. As discussed in Chapter 2, the Maroons maintain an identity that is somewhat separated from simply being ‘Jamaican’ due to their history of resistance and maintenance of a nominally separate polity, especially in Accompong Town in northern St

Elizabeth. African land tenure patterns persist, and common ‘food forest’ agricultural practices provide decent outputs of staple foods, utilize primarily (but not exclusively) organic methods, and protect agro-biodiversity (Barker and Spence 1988; Beckford, Barker, and Bailey 2007;

Spence and Thomas-Hope 2007). A typical Maroon garden in Accompong shows an intercropped mix of ground, bush, and tree crops (Figure 6.1); these minimize tillage (frequently, though the garden in Figure 6.1 shows some tillage) and soil depletion while plants at different vertical levels provide shade, effectively utilize different available nutrient loads, and help present physical barriers to different types of insect pests in addition to providing a variety of foods (Berleant-Schiller and Pulsipher 1986; Barker and Spence 1988; Brierly 1991;

WinklerPrins 2002; Kimber 2004).

I journeyed to the Maroon community of Accompong with a few Jamaican friends in late

June of 2010 and was escorted on a tour of the village by a local guide after registering at the office of the elected ‘Colonel,’ who oversees community affairs with the assistance of a

47 Council. After passing the garden shown in Figure 6.1, our guide spoke to me about the land around the village, which he said was extremely fertile. This looked fairly evident from the levels of rainfall than in the study area. He said that many of the lands around had never had chemical

47 In addition to registering at the office of the Colonel, a guide from the village is required in order to walk around the village and surrounding areas. This not only allows the Maroons control over access and the information given to visitors, but also provides some additional income for those designated as guides. Also, the Maroons maintain several sacred places that are kept secret from non-Maroons. 211

Figure 6.1. Portion of a Maroon intercropped garden, Accompong Town. June 2010. Photo by the author.

fertilizers, insecticides,or other similar inputs applied, yet had been producing for 300 years. He said that he would love to see the Accompong area become a focus of organic agriculture for

Jamaica, and for it to be the base of an organic 'natural food' export production as well.

As discussed in Chapter 2, the Maroons occupy a complicated place in the wider

Jamaican identity, being a source of pride due to their successful rebellion against the plantations and resistance against the British on the one hand, and being somewhat suspect because of their acting as hunters of escaped slaves for the British after the 1739 treaty. Nonetheless, the African- connected practices and identity of the Maroons figure strongly in many Jamaicans’ senses of their country's identity.

212 Each of these groups ‘outside’ the main system of agricultural production represents a counter to the dominant discourses of modernity achieved through technology and the

‘entrepreneurial approach to agriculture in a dynamic, competitive global economy’ so prevalent in Chapter 4. The Rastafari and Maroons offer a link to the idea of a Jamaica that is not under the domination of the contemporary counterparts of the plantations and the colonial authorities, the

International Monetary Fund , WTO, and other international agencies. Despite the observed effects of Beckford's (1999) ‘plantation society,’ this notion resonates with many Jamaicans who understand neocolonialism very well. The SDAs in Jamaica offer a way to connect the food system to the communities of faith, which are very important institutions in Jamaica. And, each of these alternatives or points of friction or resistance is already present in Jamaica and part of the belief and practice of at least some, therefore representing a strong example of the living cultural commons. At the same time, they also represent a small portion of the population. But other voices closer to the ‘mainstream’ are beginning to be heard as well.

6.3. ‘Inside’ the Agro-system

Interviews with farmers in Chapter 3 indicated that most accepted chemical-based practices as the norm; very few questioned this approach to farming. Due to the heavy marketing of agro-chemicals and circulations of modernist discourses described in the above chapters, this is not surprising. Use of chemical inputs became readily adopted when they became available in part because of its discursive connection to the highly prized idea of commercial success. Barker and Spence (1988) noted that the Appleton rum distillers began buying sugar cane from farmers in Accompong but only did so if the farmers used company-supplied fertilizer, the cost of which was deducted from the cane purchase post-harvest. Using the metaphor of addiction, they stated

213 that “once 'hooked' on chemical inputs, farmers cannot easily revert to traditional manures and fertilizers. Thus if prices rise steeply [resulting from a variety of internal or external crises], farmers become enmeshed in [what observers like Lappe and Collins with Fowler (1977)] argue is a dependency syndrome” (Barker and Spence 1988, 207). More importantly from the view of producing subject positions, however, is their point that “farmers’ perceptions of their problems also shift: problems are construed in terms of their inability to pay for the high cost of chemical inputs, not in terms of the 'tie' to chemicals itself” (Barker and Spence 1988, 207). Support for this shift in perception of the nature of the problem of chemical use was amply provided in interviews with farmers.

When asked about possibilities other than the chemical-based ones they practice, most farmers respond that they don't know of other ways to do things. When asked specifically about organic methods, a few say they don't think it is good because it is costly, but others say they don't know much about it, and that if they knew more they might try some of it. For some time now, the position of most officials at RADA and many in the agro-processing sector has been, at best, dismissive. The former director of an organic farming NGO said to me that in the recent past “a member of the Government's extension service would visit our workshops and seminars to tell the participants that organic agriculture can and would never work in Jamaica.” The current director of the same organization said that “people who are supposed to be paid to help us...say to farmers, ‘oh well, organic, not really viable, you know. It's not...for real farmers.’”

This person also reported going into a meeting with a Ministry policy official who said, “oh, ha ha...you're one of the hobby farmers, are you?” In my own interview with the RADA parish director, I asked about the potential for organic agriculture. He responded,

214 Well, it's a...niche. And will always remain a niche, you know?...it's more 48 expensive, in terms of production...they don't use fertilizers ...I don't think a lot of our farmers are...they are not into that...kind of thing. So globally, I think, organic farming will remain a niche...Because for instance...in the US, you know, organic is basically a niche, Whole Foods and those people carry that stuff, but compared to [he named two supermarket chains common in the US South, where he had spent some time], these big chains, they're not going to carry that stuff, because 'the masses' aren't going to buy it.

An American who founded a small pro-organic NGO in the study area made an analogy to Iowa in describing the situation regarding entrenched practices in south St Elizabeth: “It's like the Iowa of Jamaica. It's rolling farmland a lot, but it's not organic...” Going on to say that because of the economic situation of many of the people farming, they need to get some return rather quickly for support themselves, she said that while some change is happening, she does not see it 'sweeping over the region:' “It would be like coming into Iowa and being, like, OK everybody, we're going to stop growing soy and corn...and we're going to do vegetables and have it be all organic.”

Pervasive as they may be, these attitudes are not universal. Even within the deeply- entrenched patterns and practices of agricultural production in Jamaica as a whole and specifically in south St Elizabeth, pockets and sites of alternative practices exist. The remainder of this section will discuss three different 'repositories' of change, alternative practices, and resistance to the dominant discourses regarding agriculture. These are existing traditional/elder knowledge, organizations that work to promote organic methods, and perhaps surprisingly given much of what has been discussed to this point, actors within the existing official organs of agricultural practice, including RADA itself.

48 The statement on its face is ludicrous, but reflects the degree to which the meaning of what fertilizer is has been discursivelyconstructed to mean certain types of fertilizer. 215 Interviews in Chapter 3 introduced Soljah and Dallie, two farmers in the area (the former nearing 60, the latter in his 70s) who practice organic methods: Dallie grows nothing besides organic. In one of our conversations, I asked him about a phenomenon several other farmers had mentioned: the ‘Seven-Star Water.’ This is a period from the tenth of May to the tenth of June that is bad for agriculture, when plants are 'scalded' by a light rain; several farmers said, ‘if it rain heavy an' di groun' wet, it not bad, but when it jus' sprinkle, it [burn] everything up.’ The conversation with the elder organic farmer quickly turned to other aspects of what is commonly called ‘elder knowledge,’ ‘traditional knowledge,’ or ‘local knowledge.’ He spoke of the right time to plant different things according to the moon's phases, and of moving what he grows to different plots from season to season to prevent pests from getting established. In this year that the army worms were first becoming a problem he told me, “if you plant the crop at a certain time, the worms won't bother you...if you know...times, certain pest bother you more on something.” Contrasting with the GraceKennedy FOM who was dismissive of farmers who did not plant continuously, he said that some crops could go year round, but “Everything have a season...if it have a season, it [does] better.” He also mentioned doing some saving of seeds from special plants that were brought to him, raising them in a small screened nursery before transplanting to the field (Figure 6.2). Dallie supplies a top-end resort in the area (discussed further below) with organic produce (Figure 6.3), and working about 5 hours a day makes perhaps the best living he ever has: within the past two years he has installed an indoor toilet for the first time in his life.

Dallie is not typical in some ways aside from his use of organic methods. At his age, he

49 no longer has to support his children, who are all grown. It might be easy to ascribe his

49 I was very happy to see that as of 2012, a grandson of about 18 is living with him, 216 relationship with organic practices to this 'luxury,' but other individuals in the area that do not share his circumstances have developed a similar understanding. Soljah, who offered many comments in both Chapters 3 and 4, keeps a section of his fields free from any chemicals, hoping for the time he can start focusing on organic growing again. There was another farmer near him whom I was told was very enthusiastic for organic, but he emigrated to Canada and according to someone who worked with him, is now very successful with organic growing there.

As is often the case, these knowledges and understandings necessary for an agriculture that is less chemical-intensive and therefore more sustainable in ecosystems like Jamaica's lie buried beneath the accumulations of knowledge that carries higher status along with the corresponding generational shifts. As one person in his mid-50s said to me, ‘How long has this been going on? Forty, fifty years? No one is alive still farming who remembers farming before this [chemical] way!’

In the previous chapter, this was revealed in an interview with an elder whose son was currently farming. The American expat who made the analogy to Iowa above reinforced this' point. She occasionally acts as a consultant for people – typically very well-to-do – who desire organic gardens at their homes and villas, working with both clients and their gardeners. She related the story of a consultation the previous weekend on Jamaica's north coast, at a place where

the gardener was a really cool guy...we got along right away, and he was smart, and he could read and write, which is pretty uncommon actually [for someone in that position]...he was really...an 'educated dude,' and he told me straight up...'I have no idea about any of this, and I have no idea how to farm without sprays because that's how I was taught.' And so I always take...folks that I'm working with and I try to get them to remember how their grandparents did things, and then all of a sudden they're starting to be, like, 'oh, right; so I would plant the

both helping him work and learning the way of farming that Dallie follows.

217 tomatoes alongside scallions [for companion planting pest reduction and complementary nutrient use]...

Figure 6.2. Dallie's organic farm nursery, Round Hill. May 2010. Photo by the author.

Figure 6.3. A shipment of Dallie's produce on its way to the resort kitchen (bananas, callaloo, skellion, arugula, thyme, onion, mangoes), Round Hill. May 2010. Photo by the author.

218 In June of 2012 while walking in an area I had not been in on foot for over a year, I came across a woman in her 30s who had recently moved into a house where a previous interviewee had lived. She was waiting for the higglers to arrive and pick up several large bags of beet root that had recently been harvested. I began our interview by asking about the army worm problem, since this was in the general area where I had seen some of the worst devastation. She agreed that it had been tough, and had hit her hard. She said that in some cases, it appeared the worms ate off all the vegetation in a single night. She was planning to plant melon in one area soon, and

I asked how she prepared the field for that, noticing that in one spot it looked like weedkiller had been used. I indicated the area, and she said, “Burn...yes. We used....it [herbicide] once, and when we did, we realize that it looked like it mosh up [was destroying] the soil, you understand?...Destroy the soil, so we go back to the old time now, we weed it and prepare the land...it look like the weed killer, the Gramaxone destroy the land...the soil, so we don't use it again.” Her comment reflecting an awareness of her not following the modern ideal, this single mother hires a man to help her prepare, and he and her, along with her son, cut shoulder-high

Guinea grass and dig up the roots, both quite physically challenging tasks, on about a third of an acre because it appeared to her that the chemical ‘preparation’ seemed to ‘mosh up the soil.’

Reinforcing findings by Lyons (2000) in Australia and New Zealand and Trauger (2004) in the US, this anecdote confirms what the current director of a Jamaican pro-organic farming

NGO told me about her observations regarding the role of gender in organic agricultural practice, or even acceptance of it as a concept:

...the women are the ones who are usually far more invested than the men. Because they really believe that there needs to be a change. They really believe that....they're protecting their families... [W]e put together...a program...called 'ICT [Information and Communications Technology] Tools and Services for Women in Organic Farming'...we ran a series of workshops...we've done a number all through the Caribbean, and it's women who time after time, are the

219 ones to step up and say, ‘this is where the change needs to be made and we're going to do it.’

Also, the previous interview excerpt with the farmer reflects her understanding of the value of knowledge and practices that existed in the ‘non-modern’ past: “we go back to the old time now, we weed it and prepare the land...”

50 In addition to the choices made by individual farmers on the basis of either a conscious rejection of the dominant discourses or a more diffused unease regarding the adverse impacts of chemical-based agro-practices, several organizations and institutions exist in Jamaica that promote or support organic or otherwise sustainable practices. In some cases, these are devoted exclusively to promoting organic or more environmentally-friendly agro-practices; in other cases they are particular groups within existing institutions, including – perhaps surprisingly, given what has been written so far – RADA itself.

Perhaps the most significant of the former group is the Jamaican Organic Agriculture

Movement (JOAM). This non-profit organization succeeded the demise of a prior organization, the Jamaica Organic Growers' Association, and in the words of its Mission Statement seeks to

“facilitate the development of a sustainable and economically viable organic agriculture sector in

Jamaica while maintaining organic integrity, promoting health, environmental consciousness, and social responsibility” (JOAM 2006). They do this through running workshops, providing technical and informational assistance to interested farmers, and lobbying efforts; the organization also has developed national standards and a certification process for organic production (JOAM 2009). The organization's director told me of some of the challenges that they

50 Or, in some cases, by non-farmers. A recent online article in thedailygreen (2012) told of an organic farm and Jamaica's first Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) example, created in Trelawney's Cockpit Country by legendary founder of Island Records and producer of Bob Marley and the Wailers, Chris Blackwell. 220 51 still face, but that recent news from places in the social-majority world like Uganda (Handwerk

2012) indicates evidence of the viability of organic methods for both household and commercial production: “so, for the first time, it is more difficult for people to be dismissive of what we're doing.” Despite this, they still face problems linked to the idea of organic agriculture not being taken seriously enough.

One illustration of a problem they face concerns conceptualizations and imaginaries projected by development and aid agencies of tropical locations and their character. The notion of ‘community’ has been often portrayed as a panacea for addressing development issues in social-majority settings, even when the results of community-based programs are rather mixed due to communities often being less homogeneous than perceived with their own sets of internal power relationships (Purcell and Brown 2005; Blaikie 2006; Zulu 2008). This thinking works to the disadvantage of JOAM, a national-level organization (even in a small country) that works with a population of farmers in spatially dispersed locations. The director related an incident in which they could not obtain available funding from the US Agency for International

Development (USAID) in part, as she put it, “because we’re not a ‘community’…farming is conceptualized as a ‘community activity.’ I don’t know why…because in most places it’s big business. I don’t know how it is when you start dealing with developing countries, it suddenly becomes something other. But it does…it’s very, very difficult to get the funding you need, unless you’re ‘a community.’”

In one further example, in 2009 JOAM was brought into the European Union’s Food

Facility Project, which provided a total of €5.9 million to Jamaica to help deal with rising food prices and declining access along with improving agricultural production and management

51 Some of these are discussed above. 221 (European Commission 2012). This project provided them with funds to do training workshops on organic agriculture, of which they did many, according to the director. She went on,

It was very interesting, despite all the training we did, to see the level of...contempt with which the JOAM element of the project was treated...you don't realize the level of threat...you are projecting...so you know, we found out that 52 CARDI for instance – I can't tell you how many workshops we ran, but it was innumerable – CARDI got paid to deliver their workshops, and we didn't. And actually, I think that our outputs were better than most of the others. So, it was interesting.

Attempts at marginalization notwithstanding, JOAM seeks to establish itself as a visible element of agriculture in Jamaica, having a presence at the annual Denbigh Agricultural Show

(Figure 6.4). At this display they provided information, a schedule of events, books, and examples of organic or environmentally-friendly products. They are also seeking to develop and disseminate methods of recordkeeping, so important in organic agriculture, that are more ‘user- friendly’ among a segment of the population characterized by low levels of overall literacy by utilizing a series of easily recognizable icons. Most farmers, even ones who are functionally illiterate, are able to write a date and make a tick next to an icon that indicates what was done on a particular day, and can thereby create a viable ‘farm diary.’ In undertaking tasks like this,

JOAM 1) works to counter prevalent notions of, as the director put it, ‘oh, the poor farmers, they can’t read, they can’t write, it’s too difficult’ [for them to keep the necessary records], and 2) by getting input from farmers on the icons/images that make sense for them and reflect their own practices, serves to empower an often-marginalized group.

52 The acronym refers to the Caribbean Agriculture Research and Development Institute, headquartered at the University of the West Indies branch in St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago.

222

Figure 6.4. JOAM tent, Denbigh Agricultural Show, July 2011. Photo by the author (NOTE: Sign reads ‘Jamaica Organic Agriculture Movement.’ No other text intended to be readable).

Support for the efforts of JOAM is evident, if limited. They are included in and receive some funds from a trade and investment group called JAMPRO that promotes Jamaica as a business opportunity. A Government 2003 Agricultural Development Strategy included a section on ‘Developing a National Organic Agriculture Programme for Jamaica’ (Ministry of Agriculture

2003b) that contained good suggestions for its promotion; very few of these were apparent in action by 2012, however. Current and former directors of organic agriculture NGOs indicated that, in a departure from the past, the Jamaican government now recognizes organic agriculture as a specialized agricultural sector, though this recognition has been characterized as ‘grudging.’

Several other institutions in Jamaica provide support for agricultural practices that deviate from those normalized by the circulation of discourses of modernity. For example, mention has been made in this dissertation of both the damaging outbreak of army worms in St

223 Elizabeth (Chapter 3) and of research that revealed potentially dangerous levels of carcinogens in the soils of communities in St Elizabeth and Manchester. While conducting the interview addressing the latter, discussion of the former came up in some preliminary conversation. The researcher told me that one of his graduate students was working in the area of the army worm outbreak. This work involved building traps to capture the adult moths that lay the eggs from which the worms hatch, and also using pheromones for the purposes of mating disruption. A comparative study was being carried out involving mechanical traps, pheromones, and chemicals as mitigation techniques, and it seemed at that early point that traps were the most effective.

This type of approach is also evident in specific sites of an institution that, based on much of what has been written in this dissertation so far, seems a very unlikely place. In the community of Hounslow, very close to the GraceKennedy Post-Harvest and Distribution Facility, is a RADA Research and Demonstration site (Figure 6.5). Here, some local farmers had told me that traditional extension services are carried out, and occasionally seeds/seedlings are made available to farmers, but according to the young manager of the facility that I interviewed, their primary mission is twofold. One is experimenting in cooperation with a scientific research council to develop new commercial possibilities for farmers in the region; at the time it was ginger, which is not commonly grown in the area but for which there is significant domestic and export demand along with a good price. The other is to develop ‘best practices’ for the growing of more traditional area crops.

When I heard this from him when we met to go over the consent agreement and arrange an interview, my first reaction given previous experiences was to assume this entailed use of the latest technology and newest agro-chemical formulations. However, this was the opposite of this person's view of his mission. After telling me about the experimentation with ginger, I asked,

224

Figure 6.5. RADA Research and Demonstration Center, Hounslow. July 2011. Photo by the author (NOTE: Text on sign not intended to be readable; image is for visual reference only).

“from your point of view, what do best practices mean? Best practices for what ends?” He responded,

[B]est practices means that we try to minimize the use of pesticides, herbicides and in general try to do things with minimal amount...like, we use IPM-- integrated pest management...if you notice around the crops [on the plots here at the facility] we have our IPM established...we put like, barrier crops around it; that means when the pest comes they stop there and they clean their mouth off...so that will allow me not to spray my field because the insect, even though they enter the field they’re not a threat to my crops because they already cleaned their mouth, brushed their teeth (laughter) – so thats a good way of reducing the chemical use and damage to our environment. The other thing...we try our best to just give...the ideal fertilizer which is required fertigation – injecting the fertilizer through a venturi [tube] into the plants. That means [we] don’t have much of that leaking into the soil, it just give it the amount that it needs to sustain it and keep the plant healthy and in high production.

He also mentioned the effectiveness of ‘sticky traps’ in reducing pest problems compared to

“applying insecticide sometimes three times a week, and that's unbelievable!” He then brought

225 up the outbreak of army worm that figured so prominently in the interviews in Chapter 3. In comments that run counter to much of what I had heard from other sources, he said,

Its devastating. And you know why this outbreak is here is because the farmers are not trained enough in the use of IPM. Once a farmer identifies a small amount of pests in his field his first resort is to go and spray them with some insecticide while it [would] take him a day or two to manually go through and do some IPM...some of these chemicals are really toxic...they’re killing off natural enemies, and when natural enemies are out we’re going to have problems with pests. It's just God's way of doing things these things you know? You’ll never get rid of them, you can never destroy them...

I related my experiences of going into the farm stores and the 'beginning farmer' simulation discussed in Chapter 4, and asked why IPM is not practiced more given its economic and environmental benefits. He replied,

I think over time, uhm, people get more ‘relaxed’ so to speak, because of the advanced technology in pesticides and the easy access to it. I think if we had regulators who regulate these things and who insist that they’re not going to sell you these pesticides unless they come to visit your fields and see what really the pests, what the population rate of this pest in your field is before sell[ing] you that insecticide, then we would have solved the problem of overuse of insecticide.

I told him that I was really encouraged by what he was saying, as I had heard such different ideas in circulation over the several-year period during which this project. He said that he attends a number of seminars in the US, and he is finding more and more of them – even some sponsored by commercial agro-chemical manufacturers – stressing 'first-resort' IPM. He indicated the importance of this in a place like Jamaica because of its physical limitations, and, reinforcing the importance of organizations like JOAM, said that Jamaica needed more farmers trained in it.

Further reflecting the positions of JOAM and some others discussed in this section, he reported support for rejecting the ‘chemical treadmill’ (Ward 1994; Nicholls and Altieri 1997) in international settings. At a seminar in the US, the Ambassador General of the Organization of

American States (OAS) made a speech in which he was adamant about the importance of

226 Caribbean countries ‘doing it right’ in developing their agriculture, through educating and empowering their farmers with knowledge of this type. He also noted that the FAO guidelines and policy positions have helped (FAO 2003, 2013) in that “they are ensuring that certain pesticides don't, will not, be used...banned from their projects, and this will send a strong signal to the farmers that ‘those pesticides are highly toxic, they're not good for the environment, and we [the FAO] will not facilitate those in our projects.’ So these chemical companies are getting the signal that, hey, they're not using these chemicals in their project so you need to straighten your house...and think alternative.”

6.4. Tourism

The last of the 'sites' of potential sources or practices that run counter to the prevailing discourses regarding agriculture may be a surprising one to some readers. Tourism is often, rightly or not, cited by critics as a significant driver of certain types of homogenizing globalization and associated dependency and cultural erosion (Mathieson and Wall 1982; Wood

2000; McElroy 2003; UNEP 2003). In some cases this is simply a byproduct of the nature of many tourist/host citizen interactions. In other cases it is the result of conscious strategy, as exemplified in an article appearing in a US Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural

Service publication that points out that for Caribbean citizens, “the ‘demonstration effect’ from exposure to [US] cable television and tourist lifestyles” is something on which US food exporters should capitalize (Huthoefer 1992, 21). However, tourism also represents a potential for increased income for many Jamaican farmers.

No discussion of economic life in Jamaica can ignore the topic of tourism, crucial as it is to the country’s (admittedly weak) balance sheets in a world in which tourism plays such a

227 significant role. Tourism currently contributes 9.3 percent of total global GDP and supplies either direct or indirect employment for 8.7 percent of the world’s labor force (World Travel and

Tourism Council 2013); in 2012 international tourist arrivals reached a record total of over one billion (UN World Tourism Organization 2013). Tourism’s economic role in Jamaica is even more significant. It contributes 7.6 percent of GDP directly and 25.6 percent in total; in terms of employment tourism directly provides 7.2 percent of all employment, which rises to 24 percent when indirect contributions are factored in (WTTC 2012). Between 2008 and the end of 2010, stopovers in Jamaica increased an average of 4.25 percent each year, recording an increase of 4.9 percent in 2010 alone (Planning Institute of Jamaica 2010, 17.4). Taken in the aggregate, these figures illustrate the importance of tourism to Jamaica’s economy.

Yet tourism in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean is filled with ironies, contradictions, and problems. Caribbean countries are largely peripheral destinations for world economic flows while major destinations for millions of tourists annually; tourist arrivals are increasing while many Caribbean residents are leaving as migrants (Duval 2004). Caribbean destinations were

‘invented’ as tropical playgrounds with an aesthetically-constructed landscape of Edenic nature but the typical mass tourism found there contributes or causes severe environmental degradation

(Sheller 2004; Pattullo 2005; Thomas-Hope and Jardine-Comrie 2007). Tourism provides significant levels of employment in the Caribbean, but people doing workaday jobs aside from serving tourists – bank tellers, grocery store clerks, office workers – that don’t fit tourist imaginaries well are often kept invisible; governments of independent countries seeking to maximize employment opportunities for their citizens must rely on a type of hospitality that

53 recalls the days of plantation ‘Great Houses’ (Mowforth and Munt 1998; Taylor 2003; Sheller

53 An egregious illustration of this 'tourism-as-the-new-plantation' metaphor can be found in 228 2004; Pattullo 2005). Jamaica has thousands of hotel rooms occupied by tourists who eat multiple times every day of their stays, while thousands of Jamaican farmers watch their crops rot in the field or dig them under for lack of access to buyers or markets. For the purposes of this project, this last is the most important.

Despite tourism’s overall importance to Caribbean economies, a great deal of the money that comes into the sector is lost through ‘leakage’ (Gmelch 2003; Pattullo 2005), defined as a condition in which “the earnings of the tourist destination are less than the total expenditure of tourists” (McBain 2007: 26). The Caribbean region has what might be the highest levels of leakage in the world, perhaps as high as 80 percent (Pattullo 2005; Mustafaoglu 2011, 257), while specific estimates for Jamaica are between 50 and 55 percent (Bélisle 1984a; Rhiney

2006). Much of this leakage is attributable to the repatriation of profits abroad to transnational corporations and their shareholders54 (Gmelch 2003; Pattullo 2005; Rhiney 2006; Meyer 2007), but other factors contribute. A second is through payments made by tourists to external beneficiaries (airlines, tour operators). Finally, money is lost through the importation of goods and supplies, including food, from foreign sources rather than utilizing local ones.

Jayawardena's (2002) article in a hospitality industry journal. The title, 'Mastering Caribbean Tourism,' is perhaps a not-too-sensitive reminder of domination. To be fair, the article does contain some good recommendations regarding tourism, local peoples and environments, although the idea of the 'local community' is used in a rather monolithic and essentialist manner, and 'sustainability' is framed as the ability to keep the tourist industry going. 54 This avenue of leakage has been exacerbated since the rise of the ‘all inclusive’ hotel/resort; see McBain (2007). These establishments often prey on fears of tourists who are worried about becoming crime victims in a country made up of primarily poor black people. I have seen signs in all-inclusives stating along the lines of, 'For your safety and security, please do not arrange tours or watersports with independent operators. All such arrangements can be made through the front office or waterfront staff.' The impacts on many American/ Canadian/European tourists, local drivers and boat operators, and resort balance sheets are obvious. 229 In addition, tourism in Jamaica has low multiplier effects; McCatty and Serju's (2006, 17)

55 estimate of 1.00 replicated Bélisle's (1983) findings from three decades earlier, while Singh’s

(2008) more recent estimate is only slightly higher at 1.1 (cited in ECLAC 2011, 15). This compares unfavorably to other Caribbean destinations such as 1.27 for Barbados and 1.18 for both Dominica and Antigua and Barbuda, and is significantly lower than the multipliers of 1.96 and 1.72 in the UK and Ireland, respectively (Singh 2008, cited in Mustafaoglu 2011, 257) and

2.0 for Trinidad and Tobago (Meyer 2007). These figures for both leakage and multipliers are the result of poor levels of both forward and backward linkages.

In some cases, the potential for linkage between the tourism and agriculture sectors has been advanced by governments as a reason for a tourist development project (Torres 2003).

Agriculture's potential for stimulating multipliers through backward linkages is consistently mentioned by governments, and is portrayed as an economic sector with which tourism can link and ‘lift’ (Torres and Momsen 2004). Since food and beverages represent roughly one third of all tourist expenditures, the potential impact for this linkage is significant (Bélisle 1983; Telfer and Wall 1996; Torres 2003; Dodman and Rhiney 2008). However, a report from a UK-based pro-poor tourism organization stated that overall, tourism-agriculture “linkages are frequently discussed, rarely seen, and particularly difficult to develop” (Torres and Momsen 2004: 599) while Bélisle (1984b) indicated that linkages “often fail to materialize in the small and open economies of the Caribbean” (1).

Multiple factors contribute to the failure of linkages to meet their potential. One obvious example pertains to the overall challenges facing farmers in Jamaica, outlined above. Limitations to tourism-agriculture linkages extend well beyond physical characteristics, however. One such

55 This means that $1 spent in the tourism sector generates $1 output from other sectors. 230 limitation has to do with the willingness of tourists to try different types of food experiences.

Jamaica is one of the destinations where the tourist ‘product’ is defined by large, mass-oriented tourist resorts (Meyer 2007, more on this below), more likely to be frequented by the less

‘adventurous’ types of tourists (Cohen 1972). Cohen and Avieli (2004) reported that eating involves a greater degree of ‘incorporation’ of the unfamiliar than many other types of activities, and that ‘local’ food therefore represents challenges to tourists based on uncertainty of various

56 types, including worries about taste and issues of health and hygiene. Dependence therefore on mass tourists in large resorts trying new and different foods to support local farmers may be an unlikely path to success. However, in places like Jamaica, fruits and vegetables familiar to

North Americans are commonly available, even with some more ‘exotic’ additions (e.g., soursop, ackee, and guinep) available.

The passages above cite particular difficulties in establishing linkages in large hotels and resorts. Large and upscale hotels and resorts often define the tourism experience in Jamaica. Due to the Jamaican government's Hotel Incentives Act, tax relief and duty concessions are greater for the largest facilities, extending over twice as long as the seven years provided to small cottage-type establishments (Planning Institute of Jamaica 2010; Mustafaoglu 2011), which has encouraged the growth of the largest establishments at the expense of the smallest, which often provide greater agricultural linkages (McBain 2007). Establishments with fewer than 30 beds showed the highest percentage of local food purchases (62.4 percent), while the largest category

(100-199 beds) showed local food purchases of only 38.3 percent of their total (Bélisle 1984a:

832; similar results with an even greater discrepancy are reported in Dodman and Rhiney 2008,

56 In other words, tourists to Jamaica may be willing to jump off the 20 meter-high cliffs in Negril’s West End, but will then want to eat burgers and chicken wings at Rick’s Café rather than try the outstanding curried goat and bammie at the roadside restaurant a few hundred meters down the road. 231 who put the amount purchased by small hotels as 70-90 percent locally sourced). The ‘largest’ category in Bélisle’s (1984a) study would most likely fall into the ‘medium’ category today, with new resorts such as Riú Tropical Bay in Negril containing over 420 rooms, which might result in

800 or more beds (Riú Hotels 2010).

Much of the high density, large-resort style tourist infrastructure in Jamaica is concentrated in two general areas: on the north coast from Montego Bay to Ocho Rios, and on the western end near Negril. The locations of barrier limestone and coral reefs offshore have created several areas characterized by large expanses of white sand beaches, the most iconic of which might be the famed Seven Mile Beach of Negril. By contrast, along much of the south coast of St Elizabeth, the limestone and coral is right on the coast, making for a very rocky shoreline with scattered smaller ‘pockets’ of beach. These physical factors make much of St

57 Elizabeth less attractive to developers of massive all-inclusive resorts; this is most certainly the case in the region of the study area.

Along with the physical factors, the coastal communities n the study area collectively referred to as 'Treasure Beach' – Great Bay, Calabash Bay, Frenchman's Bay, Billy's Bay, and

Fort Charles Bay, from east to west – are well established, with a local fishing industry, a significant number of American and European expats, several strong and vibrant community associations, and a scattering of low-density tourism establishments: rental villas, cottages, one older-style hotel, a couple of moderately-sized resorts (eighteen cottages in one and fourteen

57 One exception is a relatively new (2005) resort put in by the Sandals group, constructed at Whitehouse, an attractive (former) fishing bay near the St Elizabeth-Westmoreland border area. Sandals Whitehouse is billed as a 'European Village and Spa.' One has to ask why, if a trip to a 'European village' is the aim, would one travel to Jamaica? Conversely, if one travels to Jamaica, why stay at a faux 'European village'? These questions reflect part of the nature of the contemporary tourism product, which according to Mowforth and Munt (1998) is a postmodernist cultural form of new patterns of consumption, in which travel is characterized as a commodity and consumed as an image. 232 bedrooms in another), and several small ‘boutique’ hotels (under ten rooms or suites total). In price, these establishments offer accommodations that run the gamut from under US$40 to over

US$1000 per night.

These characteristics combine to provide stronger opportunities for linkages than may exist in other parts of the country. In fact, one of the resort owners is working to both maximize these linkages and use the agricultural history and orientation of the area as a 'branding' tool to

58 support local farmers and the wider community. Born and raised in Jamaica, Damon is both a very successful business operator and a strong supporter of the local community; he was one of the primary forces behind the establishment of one of the main community organizations.

Multiple farmers in the immediately local communities sell produce to his establishment, he provided seed money for Soljah to start organic farming, and his resort regularly holds ‘farm-to- table dinners’ in Dallie's fields, where long tables are set up with white tablecloths, candlabras,

59 and fancy place settings and guests are served meals made with ingredients from Dallie's farm.

We had a lengthy interview in 2010. I began by saying that over and over again, I heard his name mentioned by farmers as someone with whom I needed to talk, and who works to ‘buy local’ to the greatest degree possible. His ideas for enhancing the community are based on its unique agricultural characteristics and capitalizing on the local development of the moisture- and soil-conserving farming techniques that Suah (1982) attributed to German immigrants:

I feel like the Pedro Plains lacks an identity. I feel that it is just kind of ‘there’ and some people know about it and some don't...[we want to] give people a sense of the region and how productive it is, and then we can say, 'there are x amount of...farmers; they've perfected mulch farming...give some profile to the area,

58 As with the farmer interviews, names have been changed for purposes of confidentiality. 59 On one visit, Dallie was excited to show me a picture in the Gleaner from the previous week, showing him sitting at the table being served something by Damon's wife. The strong breeze on the hills must make the candles a challenge, but also keeps the insects from being an issue. 233 create some signage…‘You Are Now Entering the Pedro Plains-Feeding Jamaica’...so, like, if you drive into Napa Valley, you know you're entering ‘Napa Valley, Wine Country,’ right? This should be the same....‘You Are Now Entering the Pedro Plains, Home of Dry Mulch Farming.’ And then it's all about building that story...people would be like, ‘oh, there's a unique way of farming here...why did it happen? Why did it come about?’...The wider the story, the less the focus there will be on ‘traditional tourism.’ You have to have an identity to the thing and the place...‘that's cool; there’s a story there.’ It's not just about tourism.

Damon's commitment to local farmers goes back to his childhood, when his family lived on the north coast and he would take the dirt bike his father had given him back into the hills and spend days “hanging out with a farmer...and they'd work and cook and chat about the Bible...and it was very embracing. It was just chatting and learning.” The business he owns was originally a restaurant started by his mother, and “once we started, you know, the guys would come up in their pickup trucks and the fishermen would come with their fish, and it just kind of was very seamless, buying from those guys...a very respectful relationship. And then it's grown into what it is today.”

Typically, purchasing local provisions for tourist establishments in social-majority settings faces obstacles. Aside from more structural ones such as those related to the overall agricultural context, including but not limited to the physical base, marketing, transport

60 infrastructure, and distribution systems, specific 'business-managerial' obstacles remain. These are price, quantity, quality, consistent availability, and tastes/preferences/expectations of tourist consumers (Bélisle 1984a, Telfer and Wall 1996). This last may be the most problematic to address, as taste, preference, and desire are shaped by a wide range of influences (not the least of

60 Of course, these do not just exist 'out there' or have apolitical roots, based as they often are in the exercise of unequal power relations at the local, national, and global scales. Bélisle (1984b) also repeats the conventional thinking that small farmers are resistant to change and hesitant to take on credit, citing ‘many studies,’ along with Edwards (1961). Many interested in tourism studies who do not utilize a political ecology or other more critical framework might well accept this support, helping to explain how discourse works to produce and is produced by circulations of accepted meanings. 234 which are marketing and ‘desire creation’ by those who benefit!). In one example, Bélisle

(1984b) cited Floyd's (1974) report that hotel managers in Jamaica sought large quantities of imports to “meet the discriminating palates of the visitors” (Bélisle 1984b, 1). Thus, reflecting theories and findings of Beckford (1999), Wilk (2006), and Fraser (2007) discussed in Chapters 2 and 3, notions of what tourists prefer might result from a kind of ‘our-guests-are- superior’competition; in addition, many executive chefs at large TNC-owned resorts 1) may be not Jamaican-born, 2) received training in the US, Europe, or Canada, or 3) both (Telfer and Wall

1996, Torres and Momsen 2004; Dodman and Rhiney 2008).

The ‘quantity/consistency of supply’ issues emerged in several interviews. The RADA St

Elizabeth parish official told me,

You know, the hotels want to be dealing with larger distributors...versus the farmer trying to sell to ten hotels, or the twenty farmers trying to sell to one hotel...I'm a farmer,too, but I'm a businessman first, I came out of business school. At the end of the day, it's almost impossible for it [closer linkage between smallholders and the tourist industry] to work. I think about the word procurement, and understanding procurement and logistics...and there's always a push in...any organization, whether large or small scale, to minimize the number of things that you deal with.

The current director of JOAM voiced a similar sentiment. I asked about the role of organic farming in the agro-tourism linkage for provisioning the myriad hotels on the island, and she replied, “they need to be provisioned in a sustainable manner [environmentally-speaking]...and so it takes a bit more work...that is a problem. But the market is there.” A farmer who brings his produce to Negril and Montego Bay said he often goes around to residential neighborhoods, but

“always try to sell to the hotels, but when the thing is common, [they] say they already have someone delivering it.” Others reported either the exact words or the sentiment, ‘they [the hotels] only want to buy from the big man.’

235 I asked Damon about what both the research literature and my interviews had said on this point, and he agreed with the overall point, but expanded on it and linked that obstacle to the wider issue of the region's need for an identity to set it apart from the mass tourist destinations:

I mean, people in life tend to do what's easy. And it's easier to call just one supplier and say, ‘I want 800 pounds of fish.’ And when you're dealing with one supplier you've got more bargaining power...you know, that person will typically have a board of directors, a limited company; you could typically sue that person [the supplier] if something went wrong, right? As opposed to, you know, dealing with 20 or 30 or 40 small independents...you know, it's much more work, the consistency, you know, is up and down, the price is volatile, and you know, you're not dealing with so many different personalities...the packaging is different, [portion sizes]...so you can, to be fair, you can see how it happens very easily. You know, even with [his establishment], a much smaller organization, you know, it takes more work. It takes more work, but you know, thank God we are able to pass on some of that increase.

He went on to say that this entails knowing one's customer base, knowing the profit margin within one can live, and how one's tourist product is positioned in order to pay for that premium.

I asked if the issue was merely a matter of scale, because not all of the small establishments follow the same procedures. He thought that even some of the small hotels (island-wide) had developed a 'commodity-driven' pattern, meaning that rather than seeking to be unique or establishing an identity based on their strengths, they have gotten into what he called a ‘price- driven’ mindset. As a result they may be less willing or able to work to “attract a more conscientious consumer...saying ‘let’s build a [particular] market here’ which may not be as profitable...it will be, but not initially.”

Many of the tourists who do come to this region are likely more 'adventurous' to begin with – towards the ‘allocentric’ as opposed to the ‘psychocentric’ ends of Plog's (1973) continuum or at least one (large) step away from ‘Organized mass tourist’ in Cohen's (1972) typology – since they had not opted for the large, inclusive options at the more familiar and accessible tourist enclaves. As such, they are more likely to be engaged in ‘the story’ of which

236 Damon makes so much. McBain (2007) pointed out the potential for different types of linkages these tourist may help create, indicating that tours from cruise ships take visitors to organic farms in Dominica, for example. Damon cited a similar idea in thinking about promoting a ‘bed-and- breakfast’ model for small establishments, even household-sized, in the area:

...on a smaller scale, the less it is about...tourism. What you always find in Jamaica is that because people are poor they try a myriad of things. So you know, they'll have some goats, and they'll also have some chickens, and they'll do some farming...and you know, that's what makes a great story with a bed-and-breakfast. Because we went to stay in a bed-and-breakfast in Maine last summer [for a friend's wedding]...a bed-and-breakfast, but the lady made goat cheese. Now, you're gonna go to that one as opposed to one that is just a bed-and-breakfast that doesn't do anything, because there's an additional story, you know what I mean? So, I think it really...fits into the Jamaican way of life. You know, you could go to F_____’s farm with him in the day and understand [how the farm works]...an experiential market.

Ideas like these do increase linkages between the tourism industry and local growers/producers.

Several 'culinary tourism' initiatives have been instituted in Jamaica. Aside from promoting local events such as Christiana's ‘Yam Festival,’ the ‘Visit Jamaica’ website has established a ‘jerk trail’ so that travelers can identify locations all over the country that specialize in one of the quintessential Jamaican culinary experiences, jerk (very spicy, barbecued) pork and chicken year-round (Visit Jamaica 2010). However, given the tourist industry's potential for linkages with agriculture, these efforts, while helpful, likely will have limited effect.

As discussed above, one of the biggest issues has to do with the scale at which the tourist industry operates in particular locations. Damon said, “I’m not necessarily against commercial tourism, because I'm not naive...we need the employment, we need the infrastructure...so I'm not

61 against the Spanish coming here ...” But, the entire country cannot handle such ‘over- development.’ “I think we need to say, ok, that's Negril, Montego Bay, and Ocho Rios. And these

61 A Spanish consortium has constructed several gigantic hotel complexes in Jamaica in the last decade. 237 other areas need to be zoned medium density or low density. And that, quite honestly, is where I feel the state needs to play a role...I think if you put that in place, and have that entrenched in the planning laws, then the [B&Bs and other ‘experiential’ tourism] will just happen naturally, right?” Coming back to his familiar theme, he said that his nephew would probably love to have jet skis there in the Treasure Beach area, but in Damon's words, “we want to gazette the fact that we don't have jet skis! And then you just kind of start this framing, you know?” The result is the reinforcement of the smaller, lower-density tourist operations that present greater linkage possibilities, and therefore greater possibilities for both the smallholder growers in the area to make a living, and a reduced chemical load on the soils (and potentially, bodies) of Jamaica.

6.5. Conclusion

This chapter has outlined several possible sites of resistance and/or alternative paths to the dominant agricultural paradigm of modernistic, industrial, chemical-based agriculture. After referring to the theoretical bases for such an analysis, the chapter first addressed the cultural- religious-philosophical traditions of Rastafarianism and Seventh-Day Adventism, which although practiced by a minority of Jamaicans, are diffused rather widely within Jamaican society. The dietary guidelines of these groups and several offshoots champion healthy, natural, or ‘i-tal’ foods and eating, and offer a counter-discourse to the uncritical acceptance of what is touted as 'modern.' Within this category were also included the Maroons, whose African practices and history of resistance are important markers among many Jamaicans. Next was a discussion of several alternative views on agriculture from within the Jamaican 'agricultural community' itself, including encouraging positions from at least some in the established and dominant power

238 structures. Finally, the potential of tourism, long a source of leakage, to instead become a driver of increased linkage to agriculture, especially in smaller-scale operations.

This last issue of scale remains a challenge for Jamaicans. The largest establishments bring in the greatest amount of foreign exchange, and are generally more profitable, which can partially offset the high amounts of leakage; while by contrast, the lowest leakage/greatest linkage operations experience lower expenditures per tourist (McBain 2007). Thus, a conflict may exist between the government of Jamaica's balance sheets and marginalized groups like smallholder farmers. Nonetheless, the tourist sector in other Caribbean locations has linked successfully with small producers and growers in ways that could be replicated in Jamaica: locally-made coconut soap supplied to cruise ships (Dominica), local botanical beauty products for resort spas (Barbados), flowers from local growers (St Lucia), and others (Ashley et al.

2006).

Even some initiatives are possible involving the large resorts and hotels. The Sandals

Group and SuperClubs group in Jamaica have both undertaken efforts with varying degrees of success to provide technical assistance to farmers and connect farmers and resort chefs with each other, even arranging 'field trips' to fields and hotel kitchens by each, to help each understand the other's needs better (McBain 2007). Even something as relatively simple as changing payment practices for small producers from monthly to every two weeks would help farmers who likely cannot wait an entire month to get paid (Ashley et al. 2006).

None of the alternative positions presented in this chapter qualifies as a panacea; all are limited in scope and need to be effectively expanded and connected to others. However, each represents potentially different ‘constituencies’ within Jamaica: those involved in communities of faith, those who celebrate the African origins of the Jamaican people and the maintenance of that

239 identity, those in the scientific community, those involved directly in agriculture, those who are involved in agricultural policy, and those in the tourist industry. Their sum presents Jamaicans with the possibility of, to use Robbins’ (2004, 2007) expression, a ‘seed’ of change.

240 CHAPTER 7 CONCLUSIONS

7.1. Summary

This dissertation has analyzed ways in which the agricultural landscape of the southern part of St Elizabeth, Jamaica, an area marked by numerous small farms producing large amounts of vegetables, has been produced through the operation of discourses associated with contemporary globalization. Specifically, discourses of modernity and associated corollaries such as progress, faith in science and technology, and competitiveness and efficiency, have been shown to contribute to the bounding of accepted meanings of farms and farming. This is especially true in a postcolonial state such as Jamaica, in which a history of a sugar plantation- based economy and the society that developed from it shaped the manner in which these discourses were circulated.

Working within the ‘nature-society’ or ‘human-environment’ tradition of human geography, the dissertation employed discourse analysis within a political ecology approach. In doing so, it extends PE by utilizing discourses of modernity and corollaries associated with contemporary globalization as a significant avenue of influence on agricultural practice. While recognizing the importance of markets, exports, free trade, debt structures, globalized economic interactions, and decisions made far away from St Elizabeth in shaping farmer decisions, this approach also moves beyond these more immediate aspects. It operates from the premise that choices made, and even perceptions of the choices available to be made, in how a farmer interacts with the environment in the practices of farming her/his fields are influenced by the operations of power relationships at multiple scales.

After outlining in broad strokes the nature of the problem on which this research focused and the questions it would address, the first chapter of the dissertation described the conceptual

241 approach it would follow, presenting both political ecology and discourse analysis and the rationale for their use. This was followed by an overview of methods employed, and a discussion of the sometimes troublesome concept of modernity as it contributes to this research. The chapter concluded with an outline of the remainder of the dissertation.

The next chapter provided a detailed overview of the context of the research: the

Caribbean, Jamaica, and the study area of south St Elizabeth parish along the country's southern coast. Physical characteristics including geomorphology, soils, and climate came first, followed by the historical and cultural influences that have contributed to shaping the current circumstances and conditions. The contributions of the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean and

Jamaica and patterns of Spanish and English colonization in shaping those conditions and circumstances were described, along with impacts of having been a sugar-based exploitation colony on post-independence Jamaica. These impacts involved the environment, the ethnocultural makeup of the population, and two others that are the most significant in the context of this dissertation. The first was the manner in which the colonial/plantation experience continued to affect attitudes and values of the society after the slaves were emancipated and the plantations were no more, through positive associations with those things that most closely resembled the metropole and the viewing of what was furthest removed as deficient, backward or primitive. The second was the tying of Jamaica, a small territory that was not intended at its founding as a colony to ever be an independent state, into a wider economy in a position of dependency. Together these two resulted in a Jamaica that remained susceptible to imports, whether of subsidized foods or the latest advances in scientific agronomy developed in university and private sector research labs in the US. The last part of the chapter offered an overview description of the study area in south St Elizabeth parish.

242 The third chapter continued by describing the historical and contemporary characteristics of agriculture in Jamaica and the Caribbean, starting with the origins of the dualism between export commodities and domestic food production that has come to characterize agriculture in former plantation colonies. The chapter then discussed the origins of the ‘protopeasantry’ in the

Jamaican context following Emancipation, and impacts of the island’s plantation history on food preferences and consumption. Characteristics of post-independence Jamaican food production and agriculture were then presented, including effects of Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPs), before concluding with an overview of agricultural production trends and characteristics in contemporary Jamaica.

Chapter 4 reported the voices of farmers themselves from the area of south St Elizabeth regarding the practices and techniques they employ and the challenges they perceive in the current context. Chapter 5 related examples of the circulation and operations of dominant discourses that play a role in producing the agricultural landscape, focusing on the

'backward/modern' binary, along with its association with technology, and the paired champion concepts of neoliberalism, competitiveness and efficiency. It illustrated these by reporting what was said about smallholder farmers in government reports and extension offices, as well as examples of discourses circulating in popular press, specific approaches of academic research, and promotional materials from agrochemical companies, and concluded with a discussion of the nature of the landscape produced by these.

Possible alternative paths for agricultural practice and sites of resistance to the dominant discourses surrounding agriculture were discussed in Chapter 6. Religious/philosophical traditions important in Jamaica such as Seventh-Day Adventism and Rastafari have dietary components that could serve as the basis for promoting more environmentally sustainable and

243 healthier – from the points of view of both consumers and producers – agricultural practices in

Jamaica. In addition, the chapter identified several voices coming from ‘within’ the group of those involved in agriculture that actively champion approaches other than those promoted by the dominant discourses. These included those working in NGOs, in some areas of academic research, and within RADA itself. Finally, the chapter concluded by outlining some of the possibilities presented by tourism to interrupt and abate some of the patterns of environmental and economic marginalization resulting from current agricultural practices; the former through capitalizing on the appeal of local and organic produce for tourist guests, and the latter through greater local sourcing of vegetables and fruits. As the tourist industry is a significant consumer of agricultural commodities and is so important to the overall Jamaican economy, these possibilities are crucial, especially since tourism in Jamaica is frequently identified as a driver of a homogenizing brand of globalization and economic leakage.

7.2 Implications and Outcomes

This dissertation research has focused on smallholder farmers in a small area of a small island country. However, this study has implications that range far beyond the particulars of the case study that is central to it. Why care about smallholder farmers in south St Elizabeth parish, or Jamaica as a whole? For that matter, why care about smallholders at all in a globalizing – albeit on uneven terms – world economy driven by efficiencies of scale and comparative advantage? Are smallholders such as the ones featured in this research merely an anachronism in the contemporary and future agricultural world?

Despite claims heard in some circles, smallholder farmers persist, and will continue to do so. Perhaps as many as two billion people worldwide are members of smallholder families, and

244 are spread throughout the social-minority world as well as the social-majority world; they are not a strictly ‘developing world/global south’ phenomenon (FAO 2012). Aside from merely reflecting numbers of people, smallholder agriculture represents a viable – and crucial – livelihood strategy that involves experimentation and innovation along with integration into wider market structures; it is adaptable and resilient; it is productive, supplying the largest amount of food at a global level; it embodies a set of values connected with place, community, and family and is therefore potentially not only environmentally sustainable but can actually improve environmental conditions (Zimmerer 1991; Netting 1993; Nigh 1999; FAO 2012;

Robbins 2012). Conditions of smallholders are therefore crucial in addressing needs for global food security at local scales. This is particularly so for those many places in which future supplies of (relatively) inexpensive petroleum, upon which manufacture and long-distance transport of agrochemicals as well as the long-distance transport of food imports, become less certain and more expensive.

Though many of the particulars may be somewhat different, the experiences of the farmers who are the subject of this dissertation research are similar to those in many other locations. Post-colonial states in tropical areas are not exclusive to the Caribbean, although that designation does indeed apply to nearly every piece of land in that region. Globalized (and globalizing) discourses such as modernity and progress, as the term implies, are circulated globally, and therefore smallholder farmers in many places around the world are subject to the same processes and experience the same conditions presented here in south St Elizabeth. ‘Food security’ is frequently identified as a national goal, but how this concept gets interpreted often changes: producing food for people in the country to eat becomes secondary to producing commodities for export that can improve balance-of-payments needs and pay external debt. This

245 common pattern reflects the dualism found in Jamaica between export commodity agriculture (be it sisal, tobacco, tea, coffee, cacao, etc.) and domestic food staple agriculture. Trade systems in such states are frequently oriented towards the metropole and other social-minority consumer populations. Experts in economic development and agriculture often receive tertiary and graduate education and training in the former colonial power (or in the US) in institutional settings that frequently serve as centers for the origins and maintenance of the discourses examined here. Thus, without being overly structuralist in orientation, structures exist in the world that 1) circulate, reinforce, and maintain these same discourses, and 2) result in conditions and problems in many places similar to those detailed in this dissertation, allowing for wider applications of these findings. The main themes of the story told here are not unique to farmers in Hounslow, Newell, Round Hill, and the other communities in the study area.

Together, these chapters have presented a view of an agricultural landscape marked by several characteristics, many of which work to the disadvantage of already marginalized smallholder farmers in south St Elizabeth and elsewhere in Jamaica. In addition, they have

provided at least part of the story of how this landscape came to be by focusing on the operations and circulations of discourse among many actors and at multiple scales.

This landscape is one marked by the existence of numerous small farms scattered over several contiguous communities. These small farms range from being the sole means of support for people to a means of supplementing other sources of income which may themselves be either steady or erratic. The farmers working these lands can own them, lease them for cash payment or share of produce sales, or in some cases ‘cotch on’ to a small plot that is not currently being used

(be ‘squatting’). These many small farms and patches frequently produce the same commodities, thereby putting the producers in direct competition with each other and creating periodic gluts of

246 overproduction in which the prices these commodities fetch are so low that some farmers don’t even bother trying to sell them; the other side of this coin is the attempt by farmers to ‘catch a crop’ when the prices will be high. These behaviors 1) are reinforced by widely circulating ideas of personal freedom and independence of action that may have particular resonance with a population that emerged from a colonial past based on slavery, and 2) align well with contemporary neoliberal doctrines that have come to identify globalized economic interaction, typically working as they do to the advantage of the largest and most powerful producers and countries.

These patterns of direct competition by many small producers in production of the same commodities couples with a frequently undependable and sometimes exploitive distribution system to shape an agricultural landscape marked by inequality and disconnection. Produce sits in piles after being harvested, or rots in the fields where it grew due to the higglers’ failure to come buy it or the extremely low prices they offer. Large agro-distribution centers like the one established by GraceKennedy in Hounslow offer a consistent price, but this is offset by the how low this consistent price is; despite many farmers’ participation, others assert that it does not pay for them to take part. In line with its mission and responsibility to shareholders, GraceKennedy seeks to maximize its profitability, so the price it gives to farmers for produce is a cost of production to be kept as low as possible. As it is currently structured, GraceKennedy’s operations in Hounslow appear to work most effectively to the benefit of those farmers who are already in an advantaged position, with the resultant reinforcement of the existing geographies of inequality in south St Elizabeth.

Another reason this landscape has the appearance it does, with farmers returning to their homes from shops and stores with bags of rice from Texas and cans of coconut milk from

247 Thailand, not to mention cans of tomatoes from California, is the paucity of food processing facilities in the country. This simultaneously both contributes to and results from the high level of food imports, the bill for which continues to rise. The associations of efficiency and competitiveness, which together provide so much of the underpinning of neoliberalism, with what it means to be modern in economic activity, help maintain this condition. Capital investment necessary to construct such operations are not made by Jamaican private sector investors because of more attractive possibilities for return in other locations, while food processing operations abroad provide value-adding jobs and profits to those who already hold them.

The agricultural landscape of south St Elizabeth, as well as other locations in Jamaica and in the former colonized world, is also characterized by farmers applying, and in some cases over- applying, a host of agrochemicals – pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, inorganic fertilizers – to their fields. Use of modern agricultural technology is a way to both achieve competitiveness and avoid being backward or primitive in agricultural practices, and is valorized by many actors in government and development circles, as well as sellers and distributors of these same chemicals who at times end up being de facto extension agents. This aspect of the agricultural landscape creates a burden of costs on the farmers whose work helps produce this landscape. One of these cost burdens is monetary, and the outlay to obtain the inputs effectively reduces the amount of return the farmers receive for their labors. They are also environmental and health-related, as workers take significant risks in handling and applying these chemicals; in addition, the land itself has possibly become toxic in some areas of the country through these practices.

Such a landscape is not inevitability. While the current circumstances in Jamaica often preclude initiatives that have budgetary impacts, many entrenched interests would no doubt like

248 the status quo to continue, and although their implementation certainly presents challenges due to the manner in which they interrupt and disrupt some operating discourses, several different courses of action are possible that together can contribute to the emergence of an agricultural landscape marked by some different characteristics. Five such possible courses of action follow.

First, opportunities to expand or establish food processing and value-adding operations in

Jamaica should be identified. These should not be those that work primarily to the benefit of companies such as GraceKennedy or other retail or distribution outlet by providing their store inventories and raw materials at the lowest costs in order to maximize profits, but should rather be aimed at benefitting the many small farmers and overall Jamaican food security.

Second, tourism-agriculture linkages need be created and/or developed. The Jamaican government, through RADA and the Ministry of Tourism, and the Jamaican Agricultural Society should push to include local sourcing as part of an overall tourism sector policy. In the first decade of this century, successes seen from the links between Sandals and Superclubs mentioned in Chapter 6 should be revived as part of a wider strategy at the ministerial level for mass tourism; the ‘boutique’ and specialty tourism (community tourism, agro-culinary tourism) subsectors should capitalize on the characteristics of the particular type of tourist consumer who seeks those experiences, and actively employ ‘local food’ as part of that experience. Though things are much improved from the days when the vast majority of what was eaten at resorts came in ships from Miami, room for continued improvement still exists. Ministry officials from

Agriculture and Fisheries and Tourism should seek to identify the fraction of the total tourism sector ‘food basket’ that can be locally produced – being sure to include the smallholder sector – and work at the policy and program levels to create the conditions that can facilitate reaching that target.

249 Difficult as they may be to actualize, these first two recommendations are fairly straightforward in terms of establishing policy orientations, and thus operate within existing discursive systems and structures of the ‘world-as-it-is,’ such as job expansion and economic growth. The remainder present even greater challenges, as they involve on some level not only the expression of political will necessary for the previous two, but also ‘bucking the trend’ of modernist discourses and interrupting the practices that are so normalized by them. However, models exist for doing so, both in Jamaica and elsewhere.

The third possible course of action is to reinvigorate (or in some cases, develop initial support for) the concept of cooperatives within the smallholder sector by attempting to build upon those cooperative programs that have shown at least some success and analyzing reasons for others' failure. Making such a suggestion does imply that ‘a cooperative’ is a panacea for mitigating the challenges that farmers face. Rather, several conditions and factors in the study area combine to create the potential for success of a well-designed and constructed cooperative system, such as 1) many farmers in the area produce identical commodities, 2) the climatic and soil characteristics of the area are suitable for what they produce, 3) aside from distributing to towns such as Black River, Savanna-la-Mar, or Santa Cruz, a cooperative in this area would be within a few hours’ drive of the mass-tourist destination of Negril as well as within reach of

Montego Bay. Therefore it would reduce the impact of one of the main drawbacks cited to large resorts’ utilization of local sources: dealing with many small farmers or vendors.

Also, current prevailing attitudes among many Jamaicans regarding cooperatives should not be seen as some deficiency on the part of smallholder farmers or a case of an academic researcher blaming victims for their own marginalization. Instead, the common – not universal – distaste for cooperative arrangements should be seen as the result of multiple, overlapping and

250 multifaceted forces and influences, including both history and the operations of discourses.

Successful cooperatives need not be built on the idea of cooperative land holdings, but more along the lines of local ‘produce growers’ associations’ that are able to take advantage of RADA information dissemination on prices and markets, and cut back on the amount of direct competition in the same commodities that results in a ‘race to the bottom’ in terms of commodity pricing. These can seek to provide a more complete ‘basket of goods’ instead of scores of small farmers all producing the same things, which in the end works only to the advantage of agro- processor or distributor operations, if indeed anyone. They should be local or regional in orientation due to different commodities being produced in different agro-ecological regions of the country, and should be organized with a democratic decision-making structure in order to reduce some of the ‘top-down’ characteristics that have often contributed to cooperatives being so unpalatable. This research has revealed that many farmers have a solid understanding of both growing practices and how the wider market works; it is possible to put these understandings less towards ‘beggar-thy-neighbor’ outcomes.

As part of this, regional systems of shared vans or trucks could be developed to aid in distribution and marketing. Such a network would not necessarily supplant the higglers, but could limit some of the most egregious shortcomings of that system, especially in conjunction with the enhanced agro-tourism linkages proposed above. A system or network such as this could be created through a combination of national-level grants, contributions from international donor agencies, NGOs, and community organizations. One difficulty in following this path is the potential for political clientelism in its operation; another would be the keeping other unequal power relationships typically found in communities from subverting the intended results.

Working through community organizations such as those that already exist in the study area or

251 NGO partners could possibly alleviate some of these concerns, but the best ‘negative-limiting’ factor would be a voluntary organization based principles of democratic decision-making.

Fourth, existing local/elder knowledge regarding practices long part of the ‘cultural commons’ (Bowers 2006; Martusewicz, Edmundson, and Lupinacci 2011) of Jamaican agriculture but has become attenuated through the ‘drive to be modern’ must be recognized and promoted. As one interviewee indicated, farmers often have intimate knowledge of the lands they work, including climatic and soil differences at microscales within their own fields. This knowledge is backgrounded in the valorization of scientific modernism that takes place when, for example, this particular farmer working in a RADA greenhouse tomato operation hands over a list of numerical data readings to an extension agent, who takes them away for analysis and returns the following week with instructions based on it. The farmer's knowledge and understanding is not part of the equations, though s/he may be able to offer highly detailed information reflecting sophisticated understanding regarding the sweet potatoes growing in the field across the road.

This recommendation does not simply seek to romanticize the past or return to a simpler

'pre-chemical' time. As the young director at the RADA Research and Demonstration site made clear, IPM is not and should not be a thing of the past, though it well may come from the past, and reference was made in Chapter 6 to recent research reporting successful output of food production in Uganda based on ‘traditional’ and organic practices. The example of Cuba in the

‘special period’ after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its petroleum subsidy for the island shows the possibilities for successful integration of traditional practices and knowledge along with latest research and technologies (Morgan, Murphy, and Quinn 2006). Re-valuing what has been de-valued need not be seen as a futile attempt to turn the clock back.

252 The fifth and final course of action that could bring about a change in the agricultural landscape of south St Elizabeth and Jamaica along with those of other states, both former colonies and former colonizers, may be the simplest to state but presents the most significant challenge. To employ a turned phrase, it involves ‘subverting the dominant paradigm’ within which food production takes place. The problems with this dominant paradigm were made manifest in the global food 'crisis' of 2008, and may well appear again in the near future

(Schnakenberg n.d.; Dando 2012) as food became widely unavailable throughout the world not from scarcity of supply but because prices rose dramatically and put food out of reach of many.

In small pockets in many places around the world – including Jamaica – work is being done at local, regional, and national scales to promote a ‘food-as-sustenance’ rather than a ‘food-as- fungible-commodity’ approach to food security. This approach entails defining food security as people having sufficient, appropriate, safe, and sustainably produced food to eat rather than with a narrowly entrepreneurial definition; such a conceptualization of food security should not be seen as mutually exclusive to entrepreneurship, however. Rather than promoting enclosure of the cultural and environmental commons (Shiva 1997; Bowers 2006; Martusewicz, Edmundson, and

Lupinacci 2011), such an approach promotes their revitalization.

7.3. Limitations of this Study and Suggestions for Further Research

The most significant limitation of this study is the counterpart to one of its greatest strengths: the intense focus on south St Elizabeth parish and its identification as Jamaica’s

‘breadbasket’ by both locals and those around the country. While such a focused approach allowed for a strong contextualization of the research questions and a field experience both rich and thick, other settings and contexts in Jamaica can perhaps offer advantages not available here.

253 Because of its long-established focus on vegetable production, various practices such as agrochemical- dependent farming are deeply entrenched. To make a somewhat stretched analogy to US agriculture, one would have a difficult time undertaking a transformation among farmers in central Iowa to organic-based multicrop production, while farmers in New Hampshire,

Pennsylvania, or Virginia might be far more open to such a possibility. Information gained in interviews indicated that areas in other parishes such as St Ann and Trelawny contained more active ‘organic agriculture’ movements and groups. For purposes of comparison, further work might have uncovered and investigated some of these and provided further insight into the practices in the study area.

In addition, though multiple farmer interviewees alluded to political clientelism, or at the very least, favoritism operating in various ways and in various locations that worked to their disadvantage, the topic was not pursued. In part this was methodological, in that discovering the farmers’ belief that such things occurred as a matter of course constituted a valid outcome in determining the operational context of smallholder agriculture in this study. However, evidence

(or its lack) of connections between elected politicians and import license holders, greenhouse technology recipients, irrigation scheme extensions, agrochemical formulators/distributors, and the like would only add to understanding of the world of Jamaican smallholder farmers.

Several avenues for further research proceed from this dissertation, to both deepen aspects of what has been done here and to extend it outward. One obvious such possibility mentioned above is to establish the veracity of claims of political clientelism in various aspects of Jamaica's current agricultural system. Foci might include favoritism in the choice of recipients of greenhouse technology, or comparison of community voting records with the extension of irrigation schemes. In addition, the ‘behind-the-scenes’ type of favoritism mentioned in several

254 farmer interviews presents opportunities left open by this research. Potential connections between elected leaders and those holding import licences for foodstuffs and agro-chemical raw materials are one such possibility. Another, following Edie's (1991) assertion of the small capitalist class allying with the party it will best look to its interests, is the question of whether or not business or other relationships exist between elected officials and agro-distribution firms or grocery retailers.

Another topic for further research is to continue the analysis of soils in Manchester and St

Elizabeth regarding levels of arsenic, cadmium, other soil contamination. Causes of this contamination need to be uncovered, including the potential links to agrochemical use. Though according to the researcher involved in the initial investigation levels are so high as to make remediation impossible, what next steps are possible in these communities (unnamed as of this writing in spring 2013)?

Issues of gender in Jamaican agricultural practices have not been adequately addressed here, but present fruitful opportunities for further investigation. Is openness to organic and other

‘alternative’agricultural methods connected to gender, as suggested by the NGO director? What percentage of independent farmers in Jamaica are women? Do they produce different commodities compared to men in the same area? How do women farmers compare to men in terms of average age and literacy rates, with what impacts on how they farm?

Studies from the social-majority world such as the one cited in Chapter 6 on Uganda and referenced above are needed to inform agricultural policy decisions throughout the tropical postcolonial world. This study, which appears to indicate sufficient amounts of food being produced from ‘traditional’ and/or organic practices, can serve both as 1) a balance to the condescension with which organic farming is often treated and the common equating of ‘traditional’ and

255 ‘backward’ and 2) a source of support and legitimation for those working in various settings to promote such approaches to agriculture. In addition, further research along these lines could promote more sustainable land use in food production, such as multi-level canopies as physical barriers to reduce insect pests instead of chemical use, or ways in which traditional planting guidelines might reflect effective inhibition of pest infestation based on insect life cycle patterns.

7.4 Final Words

Jamaica is neither the tropical tourist paradise shown in the internet ads for all-inclusive resorts, nor the terrifying realm of violent hustlers and private militias of drug kingpins or even petty criminals presented in movies, TV news stories, or harried accounts of some returned tourists. All of these things indeed exist and occur, along with a multitude of others, just as in any other country. Jamaica is first and foremost a large Caribbean island populated by over two and a half million people trying to make their way in a difficult world, as clichéd as that sounds. For most of these people, that making a way involves struggle and resilience. Many attempt to engage in that struggle by farming.

Jamaica is a country, a state; a sovereign member of the United Nations, but as is the case with so many other states, this obvious statement obscures as much as it illuminates. Rather than the gradual evolution towards statehood from the Westphalian system of Europe, or even from the turbulent dynastic history of modern-day China for example, Jamaica began as a possession, just like the ancestors of so many of its people. The period of European empires waned after the

Second World War, and in the optimistic decade of the New Frontier, Jamaica became independent. However, to paraphrase Jamaica Kincaid's (2000) comments regarding her

256 birthplace of Antigua and slip into the first-person voice she employs, ‘when we became independent, we had something else in mind. We cannot remember now what it was...’

True and complete independence, even in a strictly political sense, is difficult to imagine.

However, for people in Jamaica and other former colonial states, this difficulty extends further, faced as they are with the task of competing ‘on a level playing field’ with entities from large well-established nations whose reach extends around the world, and in whose interests the rules of the game are skewed. Attempting to disrupt dominant discourses that work to others’ advantage presents no small challenge. However, food and agriculture present some of the best arenas available for beginning that disruption.

257 APPENDICES

258 Appendix A. Discussion of methods for qualitative interviews

In Chapters 1 and 4, I briefly described the processes involved in the qualitative aspects of this dissertation research. This Appendix provides a fuller and more detailed explanation of those processes.

I conducted qualitative interviews for this project over a period of four consecutive summers in the field (2009 through 2012), in stays ranging in duration from three and a half weeks to two months. In some cases, these interviews were very brief and approached a semi- structured style, while in others, the nature of the conversation was more wide-ranging. A number of interviewees agreed to take part in the study by talking with me but did not want to have their voices recorded, an understandable reaction among people who have often been marginalized and frequently suspect the motives of 'big people;' as I am white, American, male, middle-aged, and have received a graduate-level education, this designation applied to me.

Although lack of recording presented challenges, I was careful to emphasize the acceptability of that choice as a way of establishing and maintaining the trust so necessary for much successful qualitative research. In several instances, this course of action resulted in interviewees allowing recording on subsequent visits. To preserve confidentiality, each interviewee was assigned a random five-digit identification number that was attached to notes, recordings, and transcripts

(see Appendix B).

Interviews for which consent was given were recorded on a small digital voice recorder

(Olympus VN-5200PC, 10x3.5 cm). Depending on the locational setting of the interview and the comfort level of the interviewee, the recorder was held in my hand, set on my leg, or placed on another surface (concrete step, chair arm, work surface). In only a few cases, background noise such as the strong breeze for which the area is known obscured points of the interview, but these

259 circumstances were rare. Several interviews had a 'stop-start' quality, as the interview was interrupted by something, or because after it was ostensibly completed, the interviewee began speaking again on a matter of relevance to the project. In these cases, the two (or more) recordings were treated as a single interview for transcription purposes.

While interviewing people who had declined giving permission to record, I took notes by hand whenever possible, trying especially to capture particular comments, terms, or phrases the interviewee used. At times, this practice was abandoned in favor of maintaining a flow to the interview, particularly if the interview was proceeding in a more conversational manner instead of following more of a question-answer format. For these non-recorded interviews, I made verbal notes on the recorder immediately after the conversation ended, using both memory and any written notes taken during the interview, and along with these notes, identified any direct quotes from the interviewee as such. These were treated as interview transcripts in the later coding process, though the word 'notes' was always attached to the title of the interview. My own comments and observations about the interview, the fields, the crops, or other aspects of the setting were recorded as separate files; these contributed to my field notes and wider understanding but were not included with any interview materials.

Interviews were transcribed in several locations at several times by several parties. I completed all of the 'Interview note' transcriptions for the non-recorded interviews. In addition, I transcribed recorded interviews from the first journeys to the field by hand into a notebook while there (my residence for these field stays did not have electricity, and I was thus conserving battery power) and word processed at a later time. I also transcribed several of the other recorded interviews. In late 2012, all remaining interview recordings were sent to outside contractors for transcription. Those with the most strongly inflected Jamaican Creole speech patterns were

260 transcribed at the Jamaican Language Unit at the University of the West Indies at Mona. The remainder were transcribed by Franklin Square Services, Inc. of Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

After receiving the transcripts as word-processed documents, I read through them all to fill in any errors, omissions, or misunderstandings – all of which were expected due to unfamiliarity with the context of the conversations, and for the Franklin Square transcriber(s),

Jamaican pronunciations and inflections or place names – sometimes referring to the original recordings in order to do so. After transcripts were completed to my satisfaction, both outside contractors reported deleting the recordings at my request in order to comply with confidentiality assurances and IRB requirements.

All interview transcripts were collected and identified as interviews with farmers or non- farmers. All interview transcripts in each of these categories were read and broad themes identified. The interviews were read again to ascertain common categories of responses within these broad themes; these then served as codes for the remainder of the analysis. Using different color pens, comments made by interviewees were then attached to these codes. After completing this manual coding process, I created summary statements and selected specific comments or passages for inclusion in the text of the dissertation, primarily in Chapters 4 and 5.

For the interviews with farmers, the broad themes identified were 1) what farmers grew

(all the things they identified as growing either currently or at other times for the purposes of sale), 2) techniques used in growing these, 3) sale and distribution of what they grew, and 4) challenges they perceive in their farming practice. The first theme is a 'non-analytical' one, and served the purpose of identifying both the most commonly produced crops and the breadth of variety of crops grown by farmers in the study area. Each code under that theme was simply a particular thing that a farmer said s/he produced.

261

Three codes were created for each of the next two themes. For the theme of 'techniques,' these were 'fertilizer,' 'spray,' and 'organic.' The first was applied if a farmer referred to using or purchasing inorganic chemical fertilizer. The second is a catch-all term used by Jamaicans and refers to pesticide, fungicide, herbicide, and/or molluscicide (for snails), and was applied to any comment made referring to their use in the farmer's agricultural practice. The last code was applied if a farmer referred to using any organic practices such as compost utilization, companion planting or other non-chemical pest/pathogen management. It was not applied when a farmer mentioned using Guinea grass as mulch, however, as due to relative dryness that practice is ubiquitous among farmers throughout the study area, even those who use the greatest loads of agrochemicals. These codes were applied non-exclusively, meaning that a farmer could employ multiple techniques, either on different fields or even within on the same field, such as using compost and spraying a copper-based fungicide on a cantaloupe patch, and those comments would be included with both the appropriate codes.

The 'sale and distribution' theme also included three non-exclusive codes: 'higgler,' 'hotel,' and 'self.' Nearly all of the farmers interviewed sold their produce to higglers, but in addition, several indicated selling it directly either to consumers or other businesses. The code of 'hotel' was applied whenever a farmer mentioned selling his/her produce to a business in the tourism sector, either locally in St Elizabeth or further away in some of the 'mass tourism' areas of the country. This code was applied even if the produce was initially sold to a higgler and the farmer reported the higgler's subsequent sales to the tourist sector establishment.

The theme of 'challenges' produced the greatest number of codes, and for the purposes of this project, was perhaps the most significant. The codes that emerged under this theme were:

262 cost burdens of inputs, lack of buyers, import pressures, low prices for produce, problems with higglers, lack of help from the government/mistrust of government and other 'big people,' overproduction of the same commodities, lack of credit, lack of a truck or other vehicle to self- market, water issues, and health problems related to agrochemical use. Again, these were non- exclusive and often overlapped. For example, a farmer could identify a challenge as 'no one is buying.' Further conversation might reveal that s/he is referring to the higglers failing to come, while another takes this to mean there is no market for a particular commodity. Likewise, a farmer might indicate problems with higglers, but rather than their absence, is referring to the low prices that the higglers are offering for a particular commodity at the moment. Summary statements and individual quotes and/or paraphrases of farmer comments appear in Chapter 4.

The 'nonfarmer' category of interviews was addressed in a similar fashion, despite 1) the interview pool being significantly smaller and 2) the wide range of positions held by the interviewees. Interviews in this category were often conducted in order to gain insights and perspectives specific to the person being interviewed, who might have been a unique actor in regards to this project. Nonetheless, five broad themes emerged from the non-farmer interviews.

These were 1) characteristics of farmers, 2) chemical input use, 3) perception of organic practices, 4) competitiveness and efficiency, and 5) the tourism sector and small farmers.

Fewer specific codes emerged in the nonfarmer interviews. 'Characteristics' included only three code classifications: 'backward/resistant,' 'knowledgeable/wise,' and 'low literacy.' The theme of 'competitiveness and efficiency' did not have any more specific codes within it. The remaining three themes all had codes that represented dualisms. For 'Inputs' these were

'necessary' and 'potentially harmful or overused.' The 'organic' theme's codes were simply

'positive' and 'not useful,' while the 'tourism' theme coded comments as to whether this sector

263 presented 'good potential' or 'limited potential' for farmers. Owing to the wide variety of interview subjects and topics, these were not aggregated and summarized the same way that the interviews with farmers were. Many of the comments made during these interviews were selected for inclusion in Chapter 5.

264 Appendix B. List of interviewees, 2009-2012 (Exact dates and some details removed and location generalized in order to preserve confidentiality).

Table B.1. List of interviewees, 2009-2012

ID# Gender Age Date(s) Details 02135 M Mid 07/11 Farmer growing melons and pumpkins, Little Park 60s 03112 M Early 07/11 Works at tourist cottages, also grows ganja; 20s discussed individualism in Jamaica 05881 M Late 06/12 Fruit peddler/former footballer in England; 20s supporting wife/child 06371 M Late 06/09 2 Farmers, working small plot on land owned by 20s 3rd party 08952 M Early 06/12 RADA consultant at Hounslow R&D plot; 30s emphasized IPM 13098 F Mid 06/12 Owner of small hotel/resort between Calabash Bay 50s and Great Bay 13741 M Early 05/09 Part-time farmer, Great Bay area; also made fish 50s traps for sale 17572 M Late 06/09 Long-time farmer, appointment made earlier in day 60s 18954 M Early 06/12 Elder visiting son/attending funeral; parents farmed 70s when he was young 19204 M Mid 05/09, 06/10, Former organic farmer, co-owner of guest cottages 50s 07/11 in Great Bay; life-long resident of area 19405 F Early 06/10 Farmer growing tomatoes with RADA greenhouse 60s program 20489 F 60s 05/09 Farmer, Round Hill area 20836 M Early 08/12 Director, Jamaica Organic Farmers' Assn; also 50s grower of organic Blue Mountain coffee 21394 M Mid 06/10 Operator of ‘boutique’ resort in Calabash Bay; 30s community leader/booster 22316 M Mid 07/11 Farmer of variety of vegetable crops, Round Hill 30s 24983 M Late 05/12 Manager of farm supplies store, Southfield 20s 27319 M Early 06/12 Part-time farmer growing variety of crops, sells to 60s tourist sector; also drives truck 30976 M Late 06/12 Farmer, road betw. Crossroads and Little Park; 20s parents were farmers 32860 M Early 08/11 Local political actor, met at Denbigh Agricultural 60s Fair (no IRB consent; interview not used) 34912 M Late 08/11 JOAM spokesperson at exhibition booth, Denbigh 30s Agricultural Show

265 Table B.1 (cont’d)

ID# Gender Age Date(s) Details 37829 M Mid 05/09 Farmer, Round Hill area near Crossroads 30s 43707 M Early 07/11 Owner of melon fields supervising laborers, Short 60s Hill area 45659 M Late 07/11 Manager, GraceKennedy Post-harvest facility, 30s Hounslow 46213 M Early 06/12 UWI professor (Life Sciences); former director of 50s organic farming NGO 49178 M Early 05/10 Beekeeper who learned practice from father, sells 30s honey informally; has other full-time job 51279 M Early 07/11 Farmer working in melon field, Little Park 40s 55071 F Early 07/11 Co-founder of small local 'organic farming' NGO, 30s now moribund 56169 F Late 06/12 Owner of small 'boutique' hotel, Calabash Bay 50s 58427 M Late 06/09 Farmer, Round Hill near Malvern road; 30s spontaneous conversation 59102 M Mid 06/12 Itinerant fruit/vegetable peddler, travels on foot 50s through study area; said 'spray brings the worms' 63178 M Mid 06/12 Farmer, neighbor of 30976 30s 65012 M Early 05/09 Farmer, also bus driver for church-affiliated 30s school 65413 M Mid 07/11 Farmer 'squatting' on land, Round Hill near 30s Crossroads 65701 M Late 06/12 Researcher, Univ. of Northern Caribbean; 40s discovered contaminated soils in two parishes 67125 M Late 06/12 Manager of AgroGrace farm store, Southfield 30s 67132 M Early 06/10, 06/11, Organic farmer, Santa Cruz mts. between 60s 06/12 Southfield/Malvern 71527 M Mid 06/10 Farmer in Newell, also works for greenhouse 50s owner 73274 F Late 05/12 Farmer growing beetroot, Round Hill; thought 30s weedkiller use 'mosh up' the soil so stopped its use 76819 M ~70 05/09, 06/10, Organic farmer, Round Hill area near Southfield 07/11, 05/12 border 82783 M Early 07/11 Farmer, Hounslow; hailed me near Research & 60s Demonstration center to talk 84273 M Early 05/09 Farmer working small plot in Round Hill area 30s

266 Table B.1. (cont’d)

ID# Gender Age Date(s) Details 89459 M Late 05/12 Farmer, Round Hill near Crossroads; lost nearly entire 30s onion crop to army worms 90156 M Mid 06/10 Farmer near Crossroads; often self-markets in Negril 30s 90634 M Early 07/11 Government official (RADA) 40s 93867 M Mid 07/11 Farmer working cutting Guinea grass, Round Hill near 30s Crossroads

267 Appendix C. Results of visual produce inventories of selected Jamaican supermarkets, 2009- 2012.

Table C.1 Results of visual produce inventories of selected Jamaican supermarkets, 2009-2012. KEY: L=Items labeled 'Local', J= 'Jamaican', I or origin=imported produce, N= no origin indicated (NOTE: items marked N* were not labeled, but produce manager told me these were 'local')

2009 Store Name My Shprs BiLo Spcl Shprs SprPls Shprs Supr Chce Fair Buy Fair Fair Plus Location PdroCrs Sthfld Ngrl GrnIsld Mndvl Mndvl Junctn BlkRv Callaloo L L L L Cabbage N J L L L L Cucumber L L L N Carrot N N N N L, USA L L Sweet Pepper N N L, USA USA L N Hot Pepper L N L L N Plum Tomato L N N L L L N Salad Tomato L N L L Onion L N L L L L N Skellion L N L L L Lettuce (any) L L L L L L Pak Choy N N L L L L Cauliflower N I L Broccoli USA L L I Pumpkin L J L L L L Cocoyam L Dasheen L L L Yam L L L L L Irish potato N L N L L L, I N Sweet potato N L L L N Cho cho N L L Okra N L L L Banana N N N L N

268

Table C.1. (cont’d)

Store Name My Shprs BiLo Spcl Shprs SprPls Shprs Supr Chce Fair Buy Fair Fair Plus Location PdroCrs Sthfld Ngrl GrnIsld Mndvl Mndvl Junctn BlkRv Plantain N N N Peanut N N L L Red Peas N N N I Gungo Peas N I Other dry beans N N N N Garlic I N Ginger N L L N Turnip L L N Eggplant N Zucchini N Watermelon N L Cantaloupe L Honeydew Beetroot L L L Orange L L Pineapple L L L Mango N Papaya N L Coconut (dry) N N Lychee L L Lime L Sweet Corn N USA String Bean L N L L Thyme L Red Cabbage I L Bean Sprouts L Red Grapes USA USA

269 Table C.1. (cont’d)

Store Name My Shprs BiLo Spcl Shprs SprPls Shprs Supr Chce Fair Buy Fair Fair Plus Location PdroCrs Sthfld Ngrl GrnIsld Mndvl Mndvl Junctn BlkRv Purple Grapes N USA USA Green Grapes CHL Gala Apple USA USA USA USA USA USA USA Fuji Apple USA USA USA USA USA USA RedDel Apple USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA YelloDelApple USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA GS Apple USA USA Bosc Pear USA USA USA USA Anjou Pear USA Black Plum USA USA CHL Red Plum USA USA Other Plum Butternut Sqsh I SnowPeas I Leeks I Celery USA Chinese I Cabbage Kiwi I Hominy

2010 2011 Store Name ShprsFair ShprsChce Location Mndvl Junctn Callaloo L L Cabbage L J Cucumber L J Carrot L J Sweet Pepper L J 270 Table C.1. (cont’d)

2010 2011 Store Name ShprsFair ShprsChce Location Mndvl Junctn Hot Pepper L J Plum Tomato N Salad Tomato N J Onion USA J, I Skellion L N Lettuce (any) L J Pak Choy L J Cauliflower I USA Broccoli USA USA Pumpkin L J Cocoyam N L Dasheen N L Yam L Irish potato L L Sweet potato L Cho cho L Okra L J Banana L Plantain N L Peanut L, N J Red Peas BLZ BLZ Gungo Peas PERU PERU Other dry peas BLZ USA Garlic CHN CHN Ginger L Turnip L J Eggplant L Zucchini

271 Table C.1. (cont’d)

2010 2011 Store Name ShprsFair ShprsChce Location Mndvl Junctn Watermelon L J Cantaloupe L J Honeydew J Beetroot Orange J Pineapple N Mango Papaya L L Coconut (dry) N Lychee L Lime N Sweet Corn USA String Bean J Thyme L J Red Cabbage USA USA Bean Sprouts Red Grapes USA CHL Purple Grapes N Green Grapes Gala Apple USA USA Fuji Apple USA USA RedDel Apple USA YelloDelApple USA USA GS Apple USA USA Bosc Pear ARG CHL Anjou Pear Black Plum USA USA Red Plum

272 Table C.1. (cont’d)

2010 2011 Store Name ShprsFair ShprsChce Location Mndvl Junctn Other Plum Butternut Sqsh Snow Peas Leeks I Celery USA ChineseCabbge Kiwi I USA Hominy L, BLZ J, USA

2012 Store Name Sovereign Shprs Empire** Michi InTown InTown Choice Cnter Suprsvr Suprsvr Location NewKngstn NewKngstn NewKngstn Watrhse BlkRv Junctn Callaloo L L J L N* Cabbage N J L L N N* Cucumber L L L L N N* Carrot L J L , USA L N Sweet Pepper L, N J L L, N Hot Pepper N L N* Plum Tomato L L L L N N* Salad Tomato L J L, N N Onion L I L N N N* Skellion L L L L L N* Lettuce (any) L L L L N* Pak Choy L L L N L N* Cauliflower L J N L N* Broccoli I USA I I N* Pumpkin L L L N N N* Cocoyam L L N N* 273 Table C.1. (cont’d)

2012 Store Name Sovereign Shprs Empire** Michi InTown InTown Choice Cnter Suprsvr Suprsvr Location NewKngstn NewKngstn NewKngstn Watrhse BlkRv Junctn Dasheen L N N Yam L L N N N* Irish potato L L L L L N* Sweet potato L L N N N* Cho cho L L L N Okra L J N N N* Banana L L J N* Plantain L L N N N* Peanut N L N Red Peas L N L Gungo Peas L I L Other dry J, N, CND L beans Garlic CHN CHN CHN CHN CHN Ginger N L N N N* Turnip L J N N Eggplant L J L L N* Zucchini J Watermelon N L L L, N N N* Cantaloupe L L L L Honeydew L L Beetroot L L L L N* Orange N L L N* Pineapple N L N N* Mango N L L Papaya J L J N* Coconut (dry) N N Lychee L L

274 Table C.1. (cont’d)

Store Name Sovereign Shprs Empire** Michi InTown InTown Choice Cnter Suprsvr Suprsvr Location NewKngstn NewKngstn NewKngstn Watrhse BlkRv Junctn Lime L L L Sweet Corn N USA I I String Bean L J N N Thyme L L Red Cabbage I N Bean Sprouts J Red Grapes N USA USA Purple Grapes Green Grapes N USA USA I Gala Apple USA USA n USA Fuji Apple USA USA USA RedDel Apple USA USA USA USA USA YelloDelApple USA USA USA USA USA GS Apple USA USA USA USA Bosc Pear USA N USA USA Anjou Pear USA, EU USA USA Black Plum I Red Plum USA, EU USA, EU Other Plum USA, EU Butternut Sqsh CHL SnowPeas USA Leeks Celery USA USA I N Chinese Cabbage Kiwi CHL I CHL CHL Hominy ** This particular store featured a sign in the produce section that read, "Empire is giving 100% support to our local farmers" 275 Key to Table C.1.

Supermarket Supermarket Abbreviation Name MyChce My Choice Shprs Fair Shopper's Fair BiLo Bi Lo SpclBy Special Buy Supr Plus Super Plus ShprsChce Shoppers' Choice Sovereign Sovereign MichiCtr Michi Center InTownSuprsvr InTown SuperSaver Location Location Abbreviation Name PdroCrs Pedro Cross Sthfld Southfield Ngrl Negril GrnIslnd Green Island Mndvl Mandeville Junctn Junction BlkRv Black River NewKngstn New Kingston Watrhse Waterhouse ARG Argentina BLZ Belize CND Canada CHL Chile CHN China

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