Lead Stories

Sweet potato farmers in the Spring Plains agro park in Clarendon check on their crop during a visit by The Sunday Gleaner.
January 18, 2026

Sweet potato’s bitter battle

The sweet potato, long designated a “good carbohydrate”, commands premium prices on the local market and carries major value-added potential, from flour and chips for the fast-food industry to salads,…
Annette Graham, weeds out sweetcorn on ESL farm in Spring Plains, Clarendon, during a recent Sunday Gleaner visit to agro parks in Clarendon.
January 18, 2026

Remembering Spring Plains’ ‘M-16 tomatoes’

Forty-three years after then Prime Minister Edward Seaga announced that Spring Plains in rural Clarendon would become a high-tech agricultural investment, the property remains a central pillar of…
Third-generation farmer Carlington McCook, who is also a police officer with the Jamaica Constabulary Force, told The Sunday Gleaner that he lost approximately $1 million worth of lettuce, pak choi, and cabbage to Melissa’s fierce winds and flood rains.
January 18, 2026 by Karen Madden

Bog Hole’s green basket under strain

If you enjoy green, leafy vegetables, chances are some of what is on your plate came from Bog Hole, a farming community near the St Ann-Clarendon border, home to farmers spanning generations. Located…
Alesha pumping gas at at Willis Gas Station in Cave Valley, St Ann, last week. She recalled that days after the passage of Hurricane Melissa last October, all she could see was water when she looked down at the town.
January 18, 2026 by Karen Madden

Mentally draining, but Cave Valley rebounds from Melissa

It is a fight that has exacted physical, mental, and emotional pain, but business operators in Cave Valley, St Ann, are clawing their way back following devastation when Hurricane Melissa dumped…
Protesting nurses at the Cornwall Regional Hospital in Montego Bay, St James.
January 17, 2026 by Adrian Frater

Doctors join nurses in distress

Western Bureau: For the second time in recent months, the medical staff at the Cornwall Regional Hospital (CRH) in Montego Bay, St James, has gone public in registering their disgust with the…
Local Government Minister Desmond McKenzie (left) in discussion with employees of the St Elizabeth Municipal Corporation.
January 17, 2026 by Albert Ferguson

McKenzie commits container offices for displaced StEMC

WESTERN BUREAU: Local Government Minister Desmond McKenzie has given a commitment to the representatives at the St Elizabeth Municipal Corporation (StEMC) that he will provide them with four…
Earl Jarrett, chairman of the Jamaica Diaspora Conference’s planning committee.
January 17, 2026 by Lester Hinds

11th Diaspora Conference set for Montego Bay in June

The 11th Biennial Diaspora Conference has been set for June 14 to June 18 at the Montego By Convention Centre in St James, with Diaspora Day – a day of service – scheduled to take place on June 16. …
Andrea Purkiss.
January 17, 2026 by Bryan Miller

Purkiss unhappy with the treatment of tourism workers post Hurricane Melissa

Western Bureau: Andrea Purkiss, the opposition People’s National Party’s (PNP) spokesperson on tourism, says she is deeply troubled by the way workers in the tourism industry have been treated since…
Heatha Miller-Bennett.
January 17, 2026 by Bryan Miller

Hanover’s Miller-Bennett launches roof replacement initiative

Western Bureau: With several of her constituents still without roofs on their homes, some nine weeks after the devastation caused by Hurricane Melissa, Heatha Miller-Bennett, the member of parliament…