Dasheen farmers get their produce ready to send to market, on Sunday, December 28, 2008 in Mill Bank, Portland. - photos by Paul Williams/Gleaner Writer

If you buy dasheen regularly at Corporate Area markets, chances are, it is from the hills of Mill Bank, Portland. The same district which lost eight members in the Dam Head bridge market truck accident on Friday, December 19. The region is like a tropical rainforest, having abundant rainfall and nutrient-rich soil, which makes it ideal for the cultivation of the popular tuber.

The production of dasheen, a staple in many Jamaican meals, is the mainstay of this deep-rural community. Though women also cultivate the crop, it is the men who are the principal producers. The women are the ones who accompany the heavy bags on the trucks to markets, along with a few men, thus the reason that there were more women on the ill-fated truck.

It's a symbiotic existence to a great extent. The farmers depend on the women to market their dasheen, and the women expect the farmers to provide them with the food crop to sell. Most times, the deal is on concession, whereby the women take the load and pay the farmers after they have returned from the markets.

Some of the deceased women the farmers claim were like mothers to them. Some actually were, and that is why their loss is so severe. The farmers are wondering how their produce is now going to get to the markets.

Inconsistency

Buyers on trucks come in from time to time, but the inconsistency of their patronage cannot sustain the farmers' livelihood. One of the challenges for marketing is the deplorable road network in the community.

Israel Junior is a young dasheen farmer who helps out his mother, and brother (a university student), with his earnings. He has a few large lots of dasheen, which he hopes to harvest soon. "It will affect me very badly, because I could not sell anything for my Christmas, nothing at all. It's going to be bad for us. We need an instant market because the few people who are buying cannot manage it," he says, alluding to the vendors who died. "We need good roads and then a reliable market for our produce. It's frustrating. You will plant, but can't get a market."

And it's not like there is a group of vendors-in-waiting. Many of the young people have left the community, and most of those who remain, have no intention of selling dasheen in the markets. The farmers themselves say it's very difficult to be farmers and travelling vendors at the same time; they are two separate roles.

On Sunday, December 28, in the rain and in a sombre mood, farmers were seen bagging the ground provision, as trucks navigated the treacherous bends and water-filled craters to get the bags. The vendors are gone, but life goes on, as there are mouths to feed and wounds to heal in a watery place where dasheen is king.

paul.williams@gleanerjm.com

Errol Deans, three-time hot dasheen-eating champion from Mill Bank, Portland.

Israel Junior (not Junor) in one of his dasheen beds in Mill Bank, Portland.

Dahlia, niece of one of the deceased women, prepares bags of dasheen for the arrival of the market truck, on Sunday, December 28.

A market truck on its way to collect dasheen in Mill Bank, Portland, on Sunday, December 28, 2008.

A dasheen farm in Mill Bank, Portland.