The 2016 National Farm Queen contestants were yesterday given a tour of the CB Group’s Imagination Farms, in Hill Run, St. Catherine as part of this year’s programme for the competition. The 400-acre agro-campus hosts CB Group’s own grow-out facilities for pigs and poultry, while the group also has extensive contract farming relationships with independent farmers across the island.
The tour was facilitated by Nutramix, the returning title sponsor of the 2016 National Farm Queen competition and was used as an educational tool for the contestants to gain insight into large scale commercial agriculture.
Livestock Production Supervisor at Imagination Farms, Wilfred Lopez who facilitated the tour of the livestock operations explained that their facility is the only of it’s kind in the Caribbean, highlighting self-reliance as the company has it’s own well on the property and the property is run on solar power during the daylight hours. “Once the sun-rises, we are off the Grid” Lopez joked.
Respectively, the Hill Run property produces poultry and pork for the market leading CB Chicken and Copperwood Pork brands. The contestants got the chance to tour inside one of the poultry grow-out houses where Mr. Lopez explained to them the best practices that the company follows to ensure that the highest quality chickens reach our tables. The contestants were also given a tour of the property’s ‘pig finishing barns’ where they had a firsthand look at the feed-systems used for animals which are of premium genetic stock.
NUTRAMIX has continued to show their support for women and youth in agriculture and remains committed to sustainable agriculture and the development of brighter agriculture sector for everyone.
We’re excited to be on board for a second year. The view of agriculture as a ‘fall-back’ needs to be changed if our country is to grow. Farming isn’t a ‘Plan B’ – it’s a very profitable Plan A. We’re working with the JAS and these brilliant young women to tackle this problem and show agriculture is not only fun, but serious business, for serious people.Andrew Raymore, CB Group Communications Coordinator
Nutramix for its part hopes that the competition will help dispel the myth that women are not power players in the multibillion dollar agriculture sector.
The crown hopefuls also toured crop operations at Imagination Farms having a firsthand look at cash crop research, development and management. This leg of the tour was hosted by Donia Nembhard of Imagination Farms, who helps oversee their production and was of particular interest for some of the contestants who are themselves crop farmers and enjoyed the technical and personal advice provided by Ms Nembhard, who herself is breaking stereotypes within the industry.
The twelve parish queens are in Kingston for a week and will be participating in various activities spearheaded by the Jamaica Agricultural Society and NUTRAMIX. Tomorrow the contestants will be making courtesy calls to the Governor General of Jamaica, His Excellency the Most Honourable Sir Patrick Allen and the Prime Minister of Jamaica, the Most Honourable Andrew Holness. On Friday, the contestants will be making their final courtesy call to the Minister of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries.
The grand coronation show will be held this Saturday, July 30, 2016 at the Denbigh Agricultural Showground in Clarendon.
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