MAP doubling down on onions with expanded acreages

Model Agricultural Production Limited, MAP, which grow crops for local and overseas consumption on leased land in Innswood, St Catherine, is projected to double the national onion yield from new methodologies used on its farms.

But it is still not happy with the achievement.

The business, which is headed by Israeli Gideon Siterman, wants to achieve the production numbers of onion farms in Israel, which yield 16 tonnes per acre – levels that are nearly three times Jamaica’s output, which is around 5.5 tonnes per acre.

Over the past two years, MAP has invested US$1.5 million in equipment, testing combination drip and sprinkler irrigation processes and doubling up on materials and chemicals used for land preparation, to raise its production levels.

“The other thing is that we have planted in higher densities than Jamaicans are accustomed to because the small farmer doesn’t have the ability to invest,” Siterman said in an interview with the Financial Gleaner.

Still, he is of the view that the yield projected by the Rural Agricultural Development Authority, RADA, for the farm could have been higher, had the business received approvals from the Pest Control Authority for the importation of metham sodium, a chemical used to fumigate farmlands of worms and diseases before seeds are sown on the land. Pest Control is an agency of the Ministry of Health & Wellness.

“We prepared the land as best as we could under the circumstances, but it was not optimum because we didn’t fumigate, the expectations for yield would have at least been 50 per cent more if we did,” said Siterman.

“In Israel or developed countries like the United States, you don’t touch the land before fumigation. It’s a special method with special materials that are used to fight worms and diseases,” he said.

Jamaica imports fumigants to treat finished goods in storage, but does not allow imported fumigants for soil use in agriculture, according to checks made with the Pest Control Authority by the Financial Gleaner.

Pest Control usually conducts tests on chemicals over a period of three to six months to assess their effect on soil, plants and animals before it could give its nod to their use. But applications made little over a year ago to the authority for trials by MAP still await the agency’s decision, according to MAP Deputy Farm Manager Princess Lee.

Siterman says he eventually expects Pest Control to give the nod to the metham sodium product. In the meantime, he has issued an invitation to the Jamaican Government to use its farm as a place for agricultural experimentation and to perfect its mother-farm concept.

“We would like to be one of the experimental farms for a new approach to agriculture in Jamaica. We have the equipment and we have the knowledge. We have already opened our doors to RADA and Bodles Agricultural Station so this can be continued,” Siterman said.

MAP occupies 350 acres of land at Innswood, of which 145 acres are farmed with onions, scallion and pumpkins. About 40 per cent of the farmed land, that is, around 58 acres, is used for cultivating onions, a crop that is vastly underproduced in Jamaica.

The local demand for onions is around 10,886 tonnes per year, but local farmers have only been able to satisfy around 30 per cent of the market. The other 70 per cent is imported from places such as Holland. MAP wants to produce in quantities that will significantly chip into those onion import numbers.

Aside from the 300 tonnes of onions that it expects to reap over the course of the year, the company will be pumping another US$1.5 million ($225 million in Jamaican currency) into various crops, an additional 130 acres of onion come November – more than doubling the near 60 acres that were initially dedicated to onion. MAP expects to reap the bulbs in March and distribute the products to tourism businesses, restaurants and supermarkets through its network of distributors.

A portion of the investment will also be used to establish 70 acres of sweet corn, a crop Jamaica also produces in low quantities.

“We try to concentrate on crops that Jamaica imports in high quantities. Those are onions for sure, scallion for manufacturing businesses and sweet corn, and we would like to experiment with sweet potato,” Siterman said.

Lands that are now being used for onions will be rotated to sweet potato in the first quarter of 2022, the company said. The crop will be distributed in Jamaica and to diaspora markets in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada.

karena.bennett@gleanerjm.com