OIL NUTS TAKING OVER CANE FIELDS

Is oil nut the industry to succeed the once booming sugar industry? Maybe not, but for Anthony Williams, a cane cutter at the Monymusk Sugar Estate in Clarendon, it is an additional source of income.

Williams, who has worked on the estate for nine years, attested to the fact that the fields are in a poor state, the worst he has seen in his years of living in the area.

“A pure bush (weeds) there now but you affi fight through it an cya give up. You affi put on tall sleeve or something will cut you up. It rough enuh, but you cya give up,” he said.

“Cane did deh yah one time, none nuh deh yah now, a pure bush grow up. Cane cutting a hard someting enuh, terrible someting fi you out deh di whole day. Now you affi wick grass an dem something deh cause dem mash up di industry,” he added.

Despite being perturbed by the upshoot of weeds in the fields, Williams said the oil nuts – the most prevalent weeds – prove to be a lucrative business venture for workers.
“Nutten nah gwane man. You just affi go out deh cause you want food pan di table cause if you no go out deh no food nah deh pan you table. And if dem lock down di factory people ago hungry an starvation ago serious round yah,” the labourer continued.

Williams told the Jamaica Observer that he and other colleagues harvest and sell the oil nuts by the pound.

Noting that there is a market for the seeds, Williams said that “people come from all over” to purchase them, which when crushed are used to make castor oil.

“We sell it by di pound — $200 a pound, so you mus know how much fi make one pound a whole heap. An you affi go a bush go bruk inna di bag an carry come put ya so an make it dry an take dem up seed by seed, you know how long dat take fi make one pound. A dat nuff people affi a live by right now an just wait pan it fi sell,” he said.

“Some man buy it from you $200 a pound an some still ginal you an say dem nah pay more than $150 a pound. Some man come an say dem want buy by pound a buy by quart. Him carry a long pan an measure it by quart so you still a lose but you still cya give up,” he continued.

In describing the time-consuming process, he said that when picked, the seeds which are in pods are put out in the sun on a tarpaulin or any other dry surface. They are left in the sun for over a week to be dried and long enough that the seeds – the part needed – pop out of the pods.

“It rough man but a so it set enuh, you affi try hard, cya give up man,” Williams said.

But Williams wants better for the fields … his solution being a change in the management. His neighbour, Dazel Thomas a retired estate worker, shared the same sentiment.

“Chiney man dem need to go,” he said.

He reminisced on what he described as the good time and stated that under the management of English firm Tate and Lyle, the estate was at its best.

“When dem (Tate and Lyle) a run it, cane full up di property dat if you walking on a road you affi a push cane out a di road to how cane bear. From Tate an Lyle gone it nuh pretty at all … it rough,” said Thomas, who worked as a security guard and cane cutter on the estate.

The Monymusk Sugar Estate was established in 1901. It is said to have brought purpose and prosperity to the Vere Plains in South Clarendon as it is the economic mainstay of the people. In 1984, Tate and Lyle Technical Services Limited operated the factory in partnership with the Government of Jamaica for roughly nine years.

The estate has been under the management of the China-based Pan Caribbean Sugar Company since 2011. The company recently signalled to the Government its inability to operate the plant in 2017.

The Government is now seeking investors to operate the estate.