Rebuilding the agricultural productive capacity of low-income farming households in Western Jamaica using climate-resilient perennial food crops — so families are more food-secure, better off, and better protected against the next storm.
Hurricane Melissa stripped orchards, felled mature breadfruit and fruit trees, and destroyed the livelihoods of thousands of small farmers across western Jamaica. A vegetable crop can be replanted in a season; a breadfruit or ackee tree destroyed today is ten to twenty years of production lost. Relief has addressed immediate food needs, but very little has gone to rebuilding the perennial productive base that fed these communities. Without deliberate intervention the recovery defaults to storm-vulnerable annual monocropping, higher food-import dependence and deeper rural poverty.
Households in Westmoreland, Hanover, St James and St Elizabeth farming half an acre to five acres, with secure tenure or written landholder consent. Priority goes to farms damaged by Melissa, female-headed households and farmers under 35. Every applicant joins a producer group and follows a simple agroforestry plan for their farm.
| Staple tree crops | Breadfruit (flagship), breadnut, ackee, avocado, mango |
|---|---|
| Agroforestry layer | Cocoa, coconut, timber and shade species on boundaries and slopes |
| Short-cycle crops (years 1–3) | Cassava, sweet potato, yam, plantain and vegetables intercropped until the canopy closes |
| Phase I — Western Jamaica | 1,000 farmers · 50,000 trees · 400 ha · 36 months |
|---|---|
| Phase II — National | 5,000 farmers · 250,000 trees · 2,000 ha · 48 months |
| Phase III — Caribbean | Replication across CARICOM states, designed with the Caribbean Development Bank |
CRM Jamaica Group holds ten-year leases from SCJ Holdings Limited — the Government of Jamaica's land-management company for former sugar estates — over two parcels at Shrewsbury, in the Roaring River and Petersfield area of Westmoreland: about 39 acres and about 35 acres. These are being transferred to the charity as its founding contribution and will host the central nursery, the demonstration and training farm and the first commercial plantings.
Every dollar has one of four jobs — nursery, farms, producer groups, or aggregation and processing. Grant funds sit in segregated accounts audited annually by an independent firm. Any work done by companies connected to the charity's directors is disclosed and approved at arm's length by the steering committee. The budget lines, accounts and the floor price paid to farmers are published on this site.
