MEET AN EXTRAORDINARY BAHAMIAN BANANA FARMER/FARMING IN THE BAHAMAS/ FREEPORT BAHAMAS
so good morning mr alfa how are you doing this morning thank you fine time awesome awesome and we are on your banana farm this morning and you will be giving us a tour yeah all right so for the viewers and subscribers just to let you know that we are in the island of the bahamas and this is mr alpha the farm owner and he will be giving us a tour and we'll have a conversation as we go through so stick and stay for that all right so mr alpha tell us how you got started in farming first of all i studied in farming over here for the past i think about 15 years ago 15 years ago yeah yes and uh because i was in the field of heavy equipment i used to own heavy equipment okay but after i think um the the fall of the economy i decide to pack up and go into farming full time okay okay but there is a lot of challenges in farming over here because this place is prone to hurricane yes and when you say over here just for clarity you're referring to the bahamas because you are from lucia yes okay and what happened is that um let us say like sometimes every three years we'll have a heavy hurricane a solid one wow right that especially with hurricane dorian yes it was all a disaster wipe off completely yes yes so it takes me three years to get me back to that stage with the help of nobody at all oh my god yes awesome i am trying my best struggling on my own yes to see what i can do again all right it has been rough and tough but i am trying okay awesome and we're looking at the farm and it's beautiful so you're saying it took you um roughly three years to get it back to this stage yes wow that is only about half of it i i am cultivating right now okay okay so in another location you have bananas in another location or this is it okay okay so apart from bananas what other crops do you plant vegetables i plant all kinds of vegetables okay okay tomatoes cabbage beets a whole lot of different things oh wow you do beets as well yes okay and i noticed under the banana trees in jamaica we call those cocoa i don't know if that's the same name that is used in the bahamas we call it tanya and in the bahamas they call it eddies okay say that again so in saint lucia we call this tanya insane lotion in saint lucia yes in jamaica it is called cocoa yes in the bahamas it is called eddies in lucia it is called tanya oh wow interesting yes yeah but it is not a big seller in in the bahamas okay it is not a big seller but i have a lot of it i have thousands of um these same eddies or cocoa or tanya however you'll learn to call it okay yeah but it is not a big seller okay um how do you um so when you it's not a big seller but you have people who do buy it yes definitely okay what do they use it for the jamaicans just buy a lot of it and the haitians oh yeah yes because we have a big haitian community in the bahamas okay and jamaicans as well okay okay so back home i know we use the coco for soup yeah um is it well we use it for pretty much like it's so it's a starch that can go with you know your protein but predominantly we use it for soup is that the same thing here too yes they they use it for super as well okay bohemians use it but not as much as um the other foreign nationals oh okay i see i see yeah all right so in terms of your bananas though mr alpha how do you um is it that you when you reap is it for export or for domestic it is only for domestic use alone okay so you sell to places such as okay i would sell sometimes to the food stores and um the locals come right here and buy it so i doesn't even have chance to get on the street with it oh they find you it is yes it is in it is in demand there's a high demand for bananas bananas in the in the um bahamas okay okay i see yeah wow and i notice you have okra as well on the farm yes well the okra um although i was not the one who planted the workers plan these okras yes right but again um it came it is very nice so it's all right with me okay okay right okay and what type of dishes do they use the okra in here i know at home in jamaica we use it for steamed fish some people may put it in soup is that the same thing just the same way just wanted to check that out yes yes it's just the same thing right so what types of bananas are these these are william hybrid william hybrid yeah it's a hybrid banana they have i think they have that all over the caribbean okay okay it's the same the same thing with jamaica okay so we still have robusta william hybrid yes these are the two best ones for the caribbean okay right you might get a few graven dish yes it's all mixed up but most of what i have there is william hybrid okay okay so i'm looking at this soil and it's mostly i see a lot of stones talk to us about the soil what um soil type is best suited for planting bananas in the bahamas okay all right what happened you'll see here there is a difference with soil on the um other farms or on other islands the reason why um when i had heavy equipment and i decided to go into farming yes uh i used to when i go and clear on people's property yes i used to take the soil and come and dump it here oh okay so you will see well that's a hill it is rising yes right and i over here i have about i'm 12 feet of soil 12 feet off soil yes so you could say that is soil yes woods and stones it's it's a it's a big area of compost material okay okay that is what it is and it is very much fertile okay because i i don't really use fertilizer as such because um it it creates its own fertilizer because it's com it's all composed right that gets you so because of that i don't use that much fertilizer yes yeah um now uh the space here in between the bananas yes right i plant them eight feet apart okay the reason why is um to control the yellow sugar together disease as you can see yes right to control these right so if i cut them right uh do not allow it to spread too far okay so i would keep trimming them and sometimes well this year i haven't had my own um solution because i'm so busy trying to bring back the farm okay but what i use to control it is the um i make an a solution out of the the banana itself like i would um cut this yes i would cut this right i would cut this and into pieces yes put it in the water to soak right right for about three months wow the seaweed right then i would take a little epsom salts and put in there yeah and molasses right the molasses would soften the leaf for me so that i'm the solution the trick could absorb it properly okay so in applying it to the solution you just where do you put it i would use a mist blower to blow the leaves oh to spray it on okay so it's a leaves that you spray yes i will spray the leaves okay right to control the the leaves spot disease yes leaf spot disease yes okay wow uh because um if i have to let's say in just a couple weeks if i can control it yes then the whole the whole field will be all gone oh my yes because it will be attacking from one lift to the next and this affects the growth of the bananas yes it stopped the growth of the banana oh premature banana yes right and a whole lot of different problems okay so i have to keep it in check yeah so it's important that you do your spraying with the solution this variety here um the sugar banana sugar banana yes that is what we call sugar banana over here okay and in saint lucia we would call this um here we call this makambu okay this is a combo yeah and in over here they would call it hog banana i don't know hog hog banana oh a hog hog as in pig oh i see yes hog banana yes wow oh yeah and now this one here right is the purple banana i brought this plant from saint lucia yes yes when we get when we go higher up i'll show you what it is like okay and i have a shorter variety right i got from over here as well yeah okay okay right so yes i will show you a little more about the the the sugar banana sugar banana okay just literally i had there was a little a heavy wind about i think that was about between 45 to 50 miles per hour wind really yes just about um about two months ago yes and most of these bananas was down wow yeah now this is not the proper way of um growing bananas yes but bean these are sugar bananas and they're very much they they can resist the temperature very very well yes right so i allow it to grow so because we have plan of um utilizing an order 500 acres of land so i'm badly in need of the plants that is why i am living it as is as is yes okay right so soon from now do we we will be preparing an order 500 acres yes for bananas pineapple and a whole lot of different things okay okay yes and so in terms of um the banana plant tell us how it is that you would start in terms of the preparation from the moment to start planting the banana to the preparation process oh you have to take care of it talk to us about that okay up to reaping of course first thing after preparing the land you do your layouts you prepare the field and then you start putting down the plants yes right you make sure your irrigations are in place right and then you start planting yes from there it all depends if you want to use fertilizer okay you will do some soil tests to see what it is like what your ph level is and everything okay right and then you take it on from there right you you decide well you check the market to see what um amount of bananas that they consume in the bahamas right right and then you take it on from there okay okay is it a profitable business it is a profitable business yes it is okay so you you mostly sell green bananas do you do ripe bananas as well only green bananas only green bananas yeah i'd sell them green okay because i have somewhere to i have a ripening um shed yes but it is not all that prepared as yet okay right because i'm still watching these hurricanes and yeah you know yes yeah but with the 500 acres it doesn't matter it will not be it is it belongs to a corporation that i happen to put together myself okay right and talk to us about that some more yes the corporation is like that um every we would like every member of gra on grand bahama everybody we would like them to be um part owner of the farm yes and a shareholder we starting with about um it's 145 yes per person and with that it comes with two shares and you only paid at once but your shares you could keep adding on your shares you could buy more shares yes right um we would like to have a store a big storage complex where that we can also sell from there and everything okay awesome so we will be growing all kind of different produce right i just name it would like to do that okay awesome so is this cooperative um you mentioned is it just for farmers just farmers or other persons who wants to it is for everybody for everybody yes because there is not enough farmers here to run a cooperative oh i see because farming is not prevalent in the bahamas no it is not a prevalent um project in the bahamas okay okay i see yeah i see so um what i am doing i am actually encouraging people into farming yes especially while um other countries some of them is very much interested in war we ourself we are very much interested in growing our own food yes right so that um it would prevent us if there is a catastrophic right we ourself would try to save our own people yes without depending without depending imports on the importation from other countries okay awesome yes right awesome so this is what i am really working on right now yes yes so ultimately you want to have a complex from which you can sell the produce yes not just bananas not just bananas just name it all kind of food whatever we can grow yes yes yes i just received an amount of 50 breadfruit plants wow yes yes about 50 bradford plants and i would like to grow that in the bahamas as well yes and to bring in much more than that wow okay yes because for the past 26 years i've been living here it don't make sense for me to say let me go somewhere else and start all over again yes yes right you want to stay and build and add some yes yes that is what i really want to do awesome okay now this area this whole area here i'm going it's getting all and i'm going to push it down to transplant it in new okay right starting from here this area here to go all the way back okay so that is why you see you will see it is not looking okay um the way it's supposed to right right now this is the banana i was telling you about the purple one oh okay yes right this is what it looked like nice all right now this is a plant from saint lucia oh i bought this one from san lucia yes yeah yes um i i don't really know the name for it okay but i would rather because it came from saint lucia yes right i would call it the lucian brand okay yes that's all i could call it okay great brown yes right mm-hmm yeah um okay um this one is a sugar banana because from down here this whole fill there yeah these sugar bananas here and it is a big seller here as well okay it is very much in demand in the bahamas it is a very sweet banana yes yeah it's very sweet oh i see why they call it sugar bananas better known as hog banana banana banana yeah it is very much in demand because um the haitians love it okay yes and there is a lot of haitians in the bahamas yes so i it and sell even more than the regular banana oh yes yes it's a big i really love that one yes um because it and it is very high in iron as well okay it's very high in iron yes so they knows about it very well so they would grow go for it okay yeah what type is this one this is one that you showed us yeah that is the same that is the same hog banana okay it looks somewhat like plantain though when you look at it no i have plantain as well you have plantain as well yes i have plantain as well okay okay so you were just saying that you have plantains as well yes i'll show you the plantains when i get back okay and there is i have about maybe about four different varieties of plantain oh wow there was two i brought from saint lucia one is grows about a hundred pounds and the other one is about 50 pounds wow yes now um what happened is that i almost lose it yeah i almost lose them in the in the hurricane oh because the sea water um was all down there not too far from right down there okay there was sea water yeah but it did not get to the top yes but the sea blast right was able to destroy a lot of my crops oh um talk to us about what is what is the sea blast the salt from the sea from the ocean yes right when when it blows it would blow all over and destroy everything yes oh yes now that doesn't mean it's close we are not i'm not that close to the ocean mm-hmm but the place is flat yes it's actually left yes because you're just going around the bahamas i realized that it's a lot of flat land a lot in fact i've not seen that here yes the whole place is flat yes so like um the the hurricane will say okay well we could take advantage there's nothing to break it down yes right the little trees are nothing you know yes yeah and you were greatly impacted by the hurricane because you would have lost everything i lost everything right all my all the processing machine all was gone oh wow everything is gone and i i am unable to replace it up to now yes yes yeah that's a friend of mine hello okay yes um now i would like to tell you as you get here yeah i would like um you could come because um he's my my my b partner okay um we also i um have we we keep bees as well oh really yes wow interesting now i had a solid blow with the bees because i'm very busy so the bee wax went in and destroyed 18 of my hives oh my yeah wow that's a lot yeah yeah yeah oh wow lucky lucky i i'm doing something there in a while i'll be with you yeah yes i can walk around a bit yes no problem okay okay well mr alpha you seem to in a um in an island that does not practice farming on a wide scale you seem to have captured so much you know the bananas the planting the vegetables i know you're mentioning that you are into bee farming as well yeah you love farming yes i love farming yes i love farming i'm addicted to farming yes you're right yes so i am i'm hoping that one day i make farming look like something in the bahamas yes yes wow that's powerful yeah yeah i i really wish to do that yes because i'm here already i can't run away from it yeah i can say i'm a bohemian after 26 years yeah you could say yes pretty much yes yeah yes so in terms of the um planting of bananas are there other farms that you know of in the bahamas that does banana planting no not really wow not really um this is the largest i would say in grand bahama yes yes right and i don't think the other islands have that much bananas um although i believe andras might have a good build as well okay yes um ultimately because you talk about farming so much and we can hear your passion for it um ultimately what is your vision i know i know you said earlier that you know you want to have farming look like something in the bahamas talk to us about your vision ultimately what would you want to see for farming in the bahamas what i would like to see for farming in the bahamas being with a black nation and that is part of our culture yes i would like us to stick to our culture right and first not to imitate um that kind of lifestyle which is not too much in our benefit which is very much our against our own health yes it is very much the lifestyle over here is very much our against our own existence because we are eating too much fertilized food and it is causing a problem health problem right now we have a big rate of cancer and diabetes yes which we can control we can do better yes if we make up our our mind to get together and fight it we will be able to fight it right right stay away from all these fast foods right because the fast foods are the number one contributor of diabetes and cancer yes right now we know that for sure so what i am doing i would like to show the people we can do better yes we can definitely do better okay right so i am i am taking the initiative to say well okay let let me go ahead yes and do what i can yes to save my people okay so that's a start yes that is a start right here right right that is what i would like to do okay if person's watching the video and they will see you want to get interested in farming home yes okay all right the easiest way of getting to me is the phone okay one two four two three seven five seventy six thirty three alpha a l p h e awesome mr alpha and of course we will place that number on the screen of this video and also in the video description so you want to reach out to mr alpha to talk about farming to really just commend him on the job that he's doing or to form a collaboration or somewhat just reach out to mr alpha thank you so much mr alpha thank you um for that and you are supposed to show us the planting as well yes let's go i'll show you the planting all right okay and i must commend you mister of what i see i love the passion you have for farming yeah and i can tell you the sun is very very hot yes i don't know how you do it but you do it yes well because of my irrigation system yes i have water now let me tell you in the caribbean i would say yes um we have the most water in the caribbean a lot of people don't know that yes and our soil is not acidic we doesn't have it's a non-acidic soil so you could grow whatever you want yes um in the bahamas yes because um the soil every drop of rain that fall on the ground is preserved yeah every drop of rain is preserved wow yeah it's all it's naturally preserved yes because it goes down in the ground and um there is no river here yes and in a matter of couple of minutes the water right will filter it through the ground through the soil and it stays right there oh right now maybe after about 40 feet if you have to drill about 40 feet you're going to heat the salt water right so the fresh water will remain on top yes and the salt water is underneath yeah so you'll get it the water little brackish it is not enough salt to really hamper your your plants okay what do you mean by brackish when i say it's brackish it is between um you have a little salt yeah and a little freshness okay in between it's balanced yeah it's balanced okay okay okay great yeah all right so how long does it take for the banana to from the time you plant it how long does it take to you know come into maturity okay um it would give take me about nine months to a year okay for harvesting okay okay yes that is but if i want to push it more than that well i can okay you know how to do it yes yes so in that case mr alpha it means that you would plant different crops so that you have bananas coming in year long yes i i just i i just have bananas year-round right because that's the time that you're planting yes oh yes year-round i see okay awesome okay okay now i'm going to show you the planting the different varieties of plantain okay yeah um the hundred pounds i told you i only managed to have one uh which it's about eight months now okay now planting would be maybe about after a year or between a year anyway around it okay right okay and while you'll get this like the horn planting these are horn plantain right oh horn yes they look like corn that's why they call them that and they resemble horns right so it looked like cow horns yeah horton planted yes yeah so okay yeah and i see i have cane too yes i have quite a bit of thin on the other side as well okay you plant them throughout the the farm awesome i want to show you i have the 50 pounds over there right right so the horned one would be the hundred pounds yes okay all right the plantains are mixed up and this is a plantain right here okay this is another planting okay right which i harvest already yes yeah and what i am doing um to maintain the quality i would be flour the bananas you know oh yeah they flour them yes right break off the flowers oh right so that um you would have a better a better quality a better and it have a better texture than um the chiquita brand mm-hmm and the other brand like dull chicken and all of them this one is much better okay and this one is fit right now this one could be ripped or it's not ready yet it's only ready for boiling not for ripening okay i see i see yeah okay i'm taking you down there okay so from what i'm seeing and based on what you have been explaining so far mr alpha i i can see that it takes a lot of work so yeah it takes a lot of years because d flooring so in terms of labor how is that for you um additional you know getting people to work um i can't get workers because uh all i have to do is request to the immigration okay that i and i would have to prove it to them right and then i would have a field inspection right i would have to um request to the labor department as well okay it has been properly controlled yes yes yes okay so it is not a matter of you just say well okay i want x amount of workers and you'll get it okay they have to come in and do an assessment yes an assessment will be taken first mm-hmm okay then you take it on from there okay understand oopsie i'll show you one of my hives there oh that is all gone okay yeah okay this is the this would be a 50-pound plantain okay right now this this one came from san lucia yeah yes this one came from san lucia this is what that is the uh what i was telling you and the other one is all the way in the back yes we might not have time to go to that okay okay okay yeah but looking at this if i if you didn't tell me it was a plantain i would think that it's a banana no that's a plantain okay yeah wow it's a plantain yes and this type is what again the name of it this one is a 50 it is 50 pound and there is another one which can go about 100 pounds okay that one is the horn one no this is a different variety right the horned one is the one that goes 100. no the ho that was all they go about between 30 and 40 pounds oh okay 30 and 40 pounds for the horn plantains yeah so i have quite a few of these i have i have quite a few of these i have the dwarf planting okay uh and the horn the dwarf the 50 under 100 four different varieties okay yes awesome yeah okay so right here now um this is one of my hives that have been destroyed by the by the wax moth right you can see right oh it was a big colony yes right and the wax moth get in there and destroy it okay so the wax what is that that you're referring to the works morph you said yeah it's a muff um it's an uh an inset like um a butterfly like but it is not a butterfly right right and the um this is what it does right so what it does it goes in there and it drinks and it lead eggs right in here right i see and then eventually damaged yes all the all the comb is is damaged and the bees have to leave because and find somewhere else to go okay so how do you prevent that from happening i lose i lose 18 of them this year so is there a way to prevent that type of insect from getting into it yes you can prevent it by inspecting it every week okay okay i was kind of spread out a little too thin yes you mentioned you were busy yes okay okay but this is that was there are new hives new boxes everything but yeah i can't see that i end up in losing it okay so um later this same year i will have to go back hunting again right to start yes to start again yeah i i goes out of hunting bees people call me mm-hmm if the um the house might be attacked by bees oh so i would go and get the bees and put them in the box okay great yeah this place um is infested with bees it is you know this place you mean grand bahama granba okay gran bahama is infested with bees so it is not a problem in me getting bees again oh okay i see right i can get bees again easily yeah easy yes i can just leave here now i'm going to collect bees wow so yeah but okay so so that concludes our tour yes yes yes so thank you so much yes thank you very much as well right for sharing with us appreciate your presence around today thank you we appreciate you for allowing us to be given this tour yes yes so thank you so much he was very nice yes okay thank you so please remember to like share subscribe and hit that post notification bell and we see you next time blessings you
2022-08-07 04:35
