-Buxton/Friendship Grantees call for proprietorship, support from gov’t

THE Buxton/Friendship Grantees, who have been farming in the Buxton/Friendship area for years, are calling for proprietorship and support from the government to improve their trade.
The grantees who claim to be “pioneer farmers” in the community, said their colleagues in the Buxton area have been receiving most of the credit while they have not been credited for their work.

Chairman of the Buxton/Friendship Grantees, Leroy Hamer said the farmers from the Friendship area need proprietorship because they have rights which fall under the constitution.

The co-operative society, which has ownership of over 2,000 acres of land in the area, had celebrated 110 years of existence on February 22 but, the citizens of Buxton/Friendship only discovered the secret of their wealth in 2009.

Hamer, in 2009, received a legal document from the Land Registry allotting the land binding the two communities, making only the generations of their ancestry the real owners of Buxton/Friendship.

“Based on the Land Registry Act the document states that any land that you cannot prove ownership by document belongs to the state. And the same Act says that you must do a declaration of ownership. So when the government did come and grade the land we didn’t have nothing, so that is when we go and uplift the grant and do a declaration,” said Hamer in a past report.

Since they uplifted the document, the farmers have been working under the inspiration of President David Granger’s initiative for a green economy.

“Under that initiative, we planted over 3000 trees but nobody gave us anything and nobody is doing anything for us,” Hamer lamented, noting that they love the President’s initiative but he needs to make his contribution.

Farmers from across the country have been benefitting from the Rural Agricultural Infrastructure Development (RAID) project which focuses on many aspects of infrastructural development for agriculture.
Hamer said his colleagues from the Buxton area have benefited from the RAID project but the “pioneer farmers” have not seen any benefits.

“Our contractual rights were violated…the programme supposed help with our project because we are the registered proprietors,” he lamented, adding that the farmers take all their responsibilities seriously under their contract.

The farmer said they need the support because they will soon be embarking on a project to train persons in the field of farming. The programme will focus on persons between the ages of 18-35 and 35-75.

The grantees have been working on such projects because it will generate wealth which will be passed on for years to come.
He believes that the grantees have done enough to get support but, his opinion is that the people who are in charge of the project are not doing enough.

“We need assistance so we submitted a request to the Ministry of Social Protection for support under the Buxton/Friendship grantees special project which started in June 2018,” said Hamer.

The grantees have so far received support from the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI) to plant coconuts, peppers and soursops. The area for which this project was done will be used to do the aforementioned training.

With that already underway, he said they intend to use the support from the Social Protection Ministry to plant some suckers and plantains.
Hamer called on officials to not just talk about agriculture but to look at the projects and get into the fields and get things done.