Ginger

SPALDINGS, Clarendon:

A move is afoot to have the planting of ginger in the Spaldings area revived. According to Member of Parliament for North West Clarendon, Michael Stern, who is spearheading the initiative, areas such as Moravia, Silent Hill, Top Alston and adjoining communities were well known for producing ginger on a large scale.

However, the MP went on to explain,a disease which causes the root of the plant to rot in the field has caused a downturn in production in recent years.

Stern also pointed to ginger projects that had already begun the revival process. The town of Moravia is one such and it has already received $800,000 from the European Union for traditional and greenhouse production of the plant.

One million dollars out of Stern's constituency development fund has also been earmarked for the project, which he said would involve close to a thousand farmers.

Future hopes

"This is being done because we want this constituency to once more return to the days when it was the ginger-producing constituency in Jamaica," said Stern.

To fight the resurgence of the root rot disease, Stern said the ginger project would also be introduced to tissue culture so all interested farmers could acquire clean plants.

Stern also made sure to mention that greenhouse farming was an integral part of the revival and that the process of getting it to production level would be done in two phases, though the procedure was largely experimental at this point. Ginger has never been planted in greenhouses before and would have to be done in bags.

In phase two of the ginger project, experiments will be carried out to see whether or not the crop can be dried using solar technology. This aspect of the project, Stern explained, would be done with the assistance of personnel from India.

Expectations

"What we are looking at is that each farmer involved in the project will get cheap and clean planting material. We are also going to ask the Ministry of Agriculture to have an expert assigned to the project to help guide it, so that it will be a success," said Stern.

Stern said at the moment ginger was being imported into the country because of the shortage being experienced; and therefore the aim of the project was to reverse the trend.

- George Henry

Ginger