Dark and light green hues are intermixed with patches of brown or reddish earth. Jamaican yam fields are really lines of yam sticks, each jammed into a yam hill. The rapid increase in yam production in central Jamaica in the 1980s had a number of interconnected effects: increased output increased the demand for yam sticks. Along came a smart, streetwise Jamaican entrepreneur who had a talent for smelling out a good opportunity. In the face of a soaring demand and a desperate scarcity of yam sticks, along came a smart, streetwise Jamaican entrepreneur who was happily oblivious to academic qualifications but had a talent for smelling out a good economic opportunity. Beckford did seminal research in the mid-1980s which documented ‘the yam stick problem’ faced by farmers. Not only was the price high and supply insufficient, but sticks purchased from traders were of such poor quality that many yam hills needed to be stalked with several yam sticks. This research also explored farmers’ attitudes towards alternative solutions to traditional methods of staking yams. One such alternative method is minisett yam, however, many farmers scoffed at and derided it as “plastic yam”. Barbados and a few other Caribbean islands had another possible method where yam vines are not stalked but left to trail on the ground. Yam sticks, in a small way, might help protect Jamaica’s precious forests. However, the principal contribution of plastic yam sticks would be towards securing a more sustainable economic future for farmers and their families. In the previous CaribXplorer, we highlighted the iconic connection between Usain Bolt and yellow yams and argued that the publicity was good for Jamaican farmers and Jamaican food security.
