Ah, Composting.

The, “Stairway to Heaven”  to organic farming or maybe the “Free Bird?” In any case I just read the Rodale book on composting from cover to cover and now I think I might be an expert at it. I THINK I might and with suspicion from others for good reason.

Back at the Orange River Research Farm somehow I was able to convince them to start a composting system. But not just any composting system, a fancy three bin composting system. Major league stuff.
Luckily for me, there were plenty of volunteers. Four college students are spending 8 weeks on the farm for practical experience. Just in time for the heavy work, building the system. We laid out the dimensions on Friday and by Monday we went “inna di bush” to fetch lumber.

Building the Compost Bin.

The construction sort of left my hands at this point as the kids took over and built themselves a nice little compost bin for themselves. Honestly I would have loved to built the thing myself but it is best to allow them to take control. By all means we are here to build capacity.

Almost there. Now we just need to add the inner walls.

With the bins built now its just a matter of collecting materials to get the system up and running.
With composting you are setting up optimal conditions for microorganisms to flourish. And for that to happen you need nitrogen and carbon based organic materials, water, soil, air and warmth ( plenty of all that in Jamaica). The trick is to get the ratios right. Too much carbon and nothing really happens or the pile breaks down very slowly. Too much nitrogen and it will start smelling like a typical garbage heap. Get it just right and the temperatures sky rocket as bacteria expel heat for carbohydrates. The golden composting ratio in this case is 25:1 in favor of carbon.

We are fortunate on this farm since there is never a lack of any type of organic matter. I foraged for cocoa husks under the trees, literally next to the compost bins. Cocoa leaves were also in abundance. Bananas growing wildly around the trees gave me plenty of green leaves to add. One rule of thumb is that if 'something' breaks down rather quickly, its a good source of nitrogen. This includes ANYTHING banana.

Grass clippings is the “ power chord” (guitarists anyone?) of composting as it is already close to the C/N ratio and breaks down easily on its own. I gathered a good load of grass after someone just cut it. Great timing. Another stroke of luck was that a few farm workers were shucking common mangos. This is the time to plant common mango seed. They will be used as root stock and eventually grafted to another mango seedling like a Julia variety or an East Indian. But that is another blog story. I gathered heavy buckets of mango pulp, rich in nitrogen. Now its time to put it all together.


Once you have your materials the technique is to form layers. I started with dried up cocoa leaves which will represent the our carbon based materials. Next came the banana leaves and the mangos. Nitrogen stuff. The cocoa husks went on top of that followed by more leaves. After all the organic materials, I threw some soil to inoculate the pile full of microorganisms and plenty of water to get it all started.

Workers harvesting common mango seeds for root stock. I'll take the pulp thank you very much.

 Repeat. Many times until the pile is substantial in size. As the system goes once the first pile is build,
turning it over to aerate it helps break it down even faster and more evenly. That's the purpose of throwing the whole heap into the second bin and starting another fresh batch in the first. And so on it goes. 

Cocoa husks.

It was only a few days until I got really excited. I wanted to check the temp. The only way I could gauge it was to stick my hand into the center to feel the temperature. The pile was heating up and I don't mean slightly warm, I mean uncomfortable hot!  I had one of those rare, “ I actually did something right moments.” With my excitement I invited a few of my colleagues to feel how hot the pile actually became. At that point they reminded me that I am in the tropics and they didn't really want to stick their hand into a gooey organic petree dish of bacteria. Pfft. Whatever guys.

So the compost is composting at a fever pitch. Eventually it will cool down and other strains of bacteria and fungi will continue its movement towards humus. At that stage we will hopefully take the stuff and experiment. How important is organic matter to plant health? Does it help against drought resistance? Ward off diseases and make veggies taste better and more nutritious? We will soon find out and see whether compost is the John Coltrane saxophone solo of agriculture or just simply disco.

Compost heap with a fresh bounty of mango peels. Better cover it up before the flies find out.

The Charcoal Trade Part II

In response to my previous post, a good friend of mine sent me a link of a possible alternative to charcoal, worthy enough to give it its own space. Ineke Adriaens is doing social development work in Uganda and wrote about making briquettes, an alternative to charcoal. The alternative could help save trees from being used by using common biomass (leaves, coconut husks, etc) to make briquettes. I love this idea and hopefully this will be a welcome alternative here in Jamaica. A big thank you to Ineke for writing a great blog piece and to my friend Chris Conley for sharing!

Making Briquettes. Photo by Ineke Adriaens.

Please check out Ineke's post....


Briquettes – producing an alternative to charcoal out of waste

The Charcoal Trade

Preparation for making charcoal.

With an unemployment rate of over 14%, many Jamaicans cleverly scrape out a living. When I lived in Heartease, a small town in Saint Thomas, my host parents sold phone cards, single cigarettes, rolling papers, bag juice, ice and right from their patio. Every little bit helps this aging couple and I am afraid if they didn't have that little, they wouldn't have any income at all. My host dad made and sold charcoal just like the article explains.

This article tells a tale that we have experienced. Strangely enough, a bit close to home as we all trained in Hellshire, one of the areas mentioned and Saint Mary is the Parish I am currently living in.

Although I was well aware of charcoal making here in Jamaica, this article came somewhat as a surprise. To be honest I didn't realize the severity it had on Jamaica's environment. Burning of garbage and the “slash and burn” technique in agriculture, absolutely. But charcoal? No.

If the demand for charcoal continues and grows, so will local opportunists looking to create an income in a rather futile job market. But what is disturbing is the trend to export Jamaican charcoal to other countries. The tug of war between environmental conservation and economics continue.

(Left: Side of a hill in Saint Thomas that has recently been burned. The land is being cleared for a house. )


Article from the BBC:
Charcoal trade threatens Jamaica's protected forests

Mott Green and his Chocolate.

This story does not take place in Jamaica. It is a story for Grenada but it should be an inspiration to the Caribbean communities. Mott Green who left the states and found residence in Grenada created quite a unique chocolate company in 1999 called the Grenada Chocolate Company. The idea came when he listened to farmers who were reluctant to continue farming cocoa because the price of the beans were too low. The solution? Realizing the demand for good quality chocolate, Green teamed up with organic farmers to create a local cooperative exporting chocolate directly to retailers.


Similar to coffee, the chocolate industry has been criticized for unethical global practices; paying cheap wages, child labor, squeezing out small farmers, stripping a countries valuable resource for pennies on the dollar only for a large corporation to easily profit from a feverish demand in developed countries. Green worked not to exploit but to empower fellow Grenadians. As the article states, the cooperative company employed up to 50 local workers all who earned the same salary. Despite the challenges the company faced throughout the years, it started recently showing profits.

Please read the article. Watch the interview. There is even a documentary that I haven't seen just yet. Get to know his story. Mott Green will be missed by many, but his story about making chocolate in paradise will remain to be an inspiration. Not for people looking to simply “drop out” or entrepreneurs looking for a profit. The inspiration here is that he lived a life with purpose and that purpose was to empower his community and the people around him.

New York Times Article

Interview with Mott Green

The Grenada Chocolate Company

Nothing Like Chocolate documentary

Breadfruit. Now better than meh.
When I first came to Jamaica three months ago, I had no idea what breadfruit was. It sounded like a strange connection of two words and not appealing. When I think of fruit coming from the tropics, I like to think of something juicy and sweet like a mango or an orange, not starchy, bland or dry like I visualized this strange thing called breadfruit.

The first taste I had of breadfruit was in my first week in Jamaica. Because I had a list of new, local fruits to taste,  I rode breadfruit off as, “meh....it's ok” not one of my favorites. I didn't try it again up until after training and one month later at my site in Saint Mary. Associating myself with the Orange River Research Farm was a stroke of luck in a rather rocky start to my service. The farm, managed by the Ministry of Agriculture, often tests new varieties of otherwise well familiar fruits and vegetables.  I typically tag along their daily tasks at the farm, most are worthwhile experiences as they are either something new, strange and interesting, at least to me. A few weeks ago we rode the tractor, “inna di bush” to a section of breadfruit trees. I wasn't too excited about it but I did sense an extra presence of enthusiasm among the group, normally not present early in the morning.

The variety of Breadfruit trees we were looking at is called, “Ma'afala” and were given by the “Trees That Feed Foundation.” According to the Foundation, “Ma'afala is a very desirable variety of breadfruit, originating from Samoa.” The trees were planted three years ago as a test, to see how well they would do in Jamaica and how they will taste. The farm was patiently waiting for the trees to mature and the fruits to ripen. I then realized that today was the day.

Three fruits were collected, brought back to the office and roasted outside on an open fire. It took a half hour to get each one of them charred to a crisp. To a novice like myself, it appeared burnt but they were perfectly cooked on the inside as someone sliced it open and cut out sections for all to try. 
 The taste was very agreeable to everyone, lighter in texture than the average breadfruit but still good tasting.

Fifteen people gathered at the Orange River research station in Jamaica to eat the first fruit of the Ma'afala trees that were planted in December 2009. Photo by Zavier Gray.

So what is the deal about the Ma'afala? Export markets have a particularly tough time with the narrowing perceptions and sensibilities of developed nations and consumer societies. Oranges have to be “orange,” mangos cannot be stringy and breadfruits shouldn't be too large. Too big of anything typically doesn't sell very well as breadfruits are typically large and heavy. The Ma'afala is a round smaller fruit and it is the Ministry of Agricultural's interest to promote this as a possible viable export crop for Jamaican farmers. The trees are also smaller in size which might mean you can plant more trees per acre.

As for me, I had two slices of the Ma'afala with stewed beef today for lunch. Whether is was the hunger speaking or that rice has been my only staple of carbohydrates for the past three months, I noticed my new appreciation for breadfruit. 

 Introducing Miss Louis Bennet your go to folklorist on Jamaican culture. As a poet herself, she was instrumental in giving the Jamaican language, Patois literary recognition. If you want a Jamaican culture 101 course, you need to go through, “Miss Lou.” Here is eight minutes of video worthy of your time. Just to mention the beginning of the video has the pickney folk song, “Manuel Road” which is a song we learned to sing during training.

“Finga mash no cry” makes sense once you get to see how the game is played.

Where to start....well I suppose we can start from where I started..by watching a documentary that is very much worth watching. I saw this prior to my arrival and I'm glad I did.  It is called, “Life and Debt” filmed by Stephanie Black in 2001 and it shows the nitty gritty economic challenges small countries like Jamaica face against factions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

There are some excerpts on youtube if you would like to look for them, but I believe that you can see the documentary in its entirety here, (that's if you are in the States):

Life and Debt Documentary

Here is the webpage dedicated to the documentary:
http://lifeanddebt.org