Bauxite’s heavy toll

Stanley Broomfield has lived in south Manchester all his life. He has been a farmer since his days in primary school, learning the art, science, ecology, and economics of agriculture from his late father, Herbert ‘Mass Herbie’ Broomfield, more than 50 years ago.

A trained agricultural professional, Broomfield studied at Elim Agricultural College and the College of Agriculture, Science and Education. He now teaches agricultural science and has made farming both his career and his business.

Speaking with The Sunday Gleaner weeks ago, Broomfield expressed distress over the environmental degradation caused by decades of bauxite mining in Manchester. Backed by detailed observations, he provided evidence of what he calls irreversible damage to the land and the farming economy.

Broomfield pointed to massive open craters in Huncheston as physical proof. The 15-mile stretch of mining from Spur Tree to Bosue, once home to over 20 vibrant farming communities, has seen more than 80 per cent of those communities affected. Areas once free of flooding now experience water accumulation after heavy rains, while dust pollution is ever-present.

“They were the citrus-producing communities, and livestock communities. Bauxite mining has killed both industries. Even with advances in agronomy, it has never been revived, and areas such as Salmon Town, which produced many different varieties of oranges, including ortanique as well as tangerines, are now completely barren,” he said.

He invited The Sunday Gleaner to accompany him to some of the areas, where nutrient-rich soil and and flat lands which were once heavily into agricultural production were now bare. Fruit trees in many communities were decimated.

“There is a set of adults and children who will never know what an ortanique looks like. Tangerines are almost non-existent. Now, even regular parson brown orange cannot be bought because of how expensive it is. We used to export citrus. I know when that used to happen. Some of the citrus from here went into that exporting pool,” he wailed.

Though Broomfield acknowledges global market pressures and the removal of preferential trade agreements, he maintains that the lack of land rehabilitation is the real culprit behind the collapse of farming. He said farmers have been left with holes in their­ heart – much like the large craters. Without rehabilitation, the land cannot be put into any use, he stated.

At Woodlands near Salmon Town, a dispute erupted between two mining companies over a plot where an early childhood school sits. One threatened to mine the very ground the school is built on. The dispute’s outcome remains unclear.

Several questions sent by The Sunday Gleaner to Mining Minister Floyd Green and Rainford Nicholson of the Mines and Geology Division since February have gone unanswered despite multiple attempts to get responses.

Known for large acreages of root crops and vegetables, south Manchester is faced with smaller yields for shorter periods and goods sold at higher prices. Gone are the large backyard coffee farms, which many householders grew for export. Gone are also acres of pimento trees from which the berries were sold for high prices, and the branches used in the spices and perfume industries.

According to Broomfield, persons who were once cultivating their own foods were now dependents on others.

“Look at the price of sweet potatoes. All those farms are gone. Maybe somebody has an orange tree where they mined. So the holes are left, some for decades, and killing the hopes individuals who would want to restart farming,” he explained.

The communal spirit of fruit bartering is gone, replaced by scarcity and dependence. Broomfield acknowledges some minor infrastructure projects by mining companies, but says they mostly benefit mining operations.

“They have built and/or rehabilitated health clinics. They cut roads, mostly for their own benefit, to transport of the mined earth. The roads are dirt roads and it carries the dust for miles. But where they have asphalted, the communities get them. They cannot take up the roads when they have mined out an area, so the communities get the road by default,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.

Neville Peart, a farmer from Meadsfield near Swaby’s Hope, described the transformation of fertile land into barren patches after years of mining from Spur Tree through the bushes to Salmon Town.

“The area was mined by Alpart and then Rusal and then the Chinese. But nothing is going on here. And even the areas where they rehabilitate, the soil quality is not good. The soil they put back in many places is not the original soil because they take off the topsoil and store it at different points. Then when they reclaim the land, they just pick up some of the stored topsoil, which is a mixture of topsoil from different communities, and just put it back,”

This mishmash of soil leads to low-quality and low-yield crops. Peart said the topsoil – vital for fertility – is often lost or misused, leaving behind a terrain of gravel and infertile dirt. Crops such as yams, sweet and Irish potatoes, dasheen, cocoa, bananas, coffee now have to be heavily fertilised for any decent yield.

“They don’t reclaim the land properly. The soil nutrients would have been in the topsoil. They take it, put it on other people’s property. So, what we have here it’s short of topsoil. So once you have heavy rains, it washes away a lot of the earth. And they never, all over the land, they never fertilise the grass. Now the soil breed pure ‘kasha’ trees,” said Peart, who disclosed his family had to use a bulldozer at their own expense to clear somewhere to farm.

Peart noted that no operation is under way at Alpart.

“Nothing is going on at Alpart (Nain). If you go here to make any kind of enquiries at the office, bush is growing in the place. It is a disgrace. But around my area, a lot of garbage is dumped in the some of the areas they have not reclaimed. But in the last few months, it looks like they doing some reclaiming work,” Peart told The Sunday Gleaner.

The land near his home was only reclaimed five years after mining ended, two decades ago. He is adamant that the land was not restored to the condition it was before.

“No, it is not the same. I would say bauxite mining has not done anything in Manchester. In fact, I don’t see what it has done in any parish. They have been really poor,” he said.

They promised me they would fix the road. And about a year after, ... they told me they were not going to be able to recover the road ... . They said they would give me $40,000 to fix the road. And I said, ‘$40,000? I can’t fix it!’ $40,000, can’t fix it? It’s more $40 million. And then it reached to $80,000. And now they never fixed one inch,” said a still angry Peart.

That was in 2009.

Despite the setbacks, Broomfield believes the open craters left behind can serve a purpose. He proposes using them to store rainwater for irrigation, especially in drought-prone areas.

“So one solution for this that where the craters are close to the roadside, they can channel the [excess] water during the rainy season to them for storage for irrigation purposes. This is an area that suffers from drought. So channel water to them for greenhouse farming. So instead of the brokeback farming, use greenhouse farming, because you don’t need the base of soil to set up greenhouses,” suggested Broomfield.

He suggests lining the craters with plastic and levelling the surrounding land for farming. This, he believes, could rejuvenate local agriculture and attract younger generations.

“It is this type of farming that will attract younger persons to agriculture, especially as the country is becoming more and more food insecure. Mined-out lands never go back to the level of farming they once saw, but at least, we would be able to cater to our own market, given the greater demand for local production, as the country’s export bill grows larger and larger each year,” he explained.

erica.virtue@gleanerjm.com