WHILE THE GREEN MONKEY may be viewed as an important symbol of Barbadiana, a young farmer believes culling the population of the primate pest may be a necessary evil.
They are costing 19-year-old Rashan Howell thousands of dollars of losses in produce whenever they raid his two-acre plot. He has been scratching his head trying to figure out a way to permanently keep them away from his beds of squash, cucumber, pumpkin, tomatoes, sweet pepper and cabbage.
Howell, who manages a livestock and crop farm in Walkers, St Andrew, told These Fields And Hills he was at his wits end addressing his monkey problem.
He said he tried every prevention method he could think of and sought advice from experienced farmers, but no matter what he did, the monkeys would not go away. He tried putting chicken and pig manure around the perimeter of his plot, made scarecrows, placed newspaper on top of his crops and relocated his dog to the garden to strike fear into the pests, but none worked.
“They come around early on mornings around six and just before the sun goes down around four/five o’clock,” he said.
“I even tried letting loose a boar I had, but then the boar used to go in the road and create problems for motorists. The only thing that seems to work is when I hang up a dead monkey in the ground.”
While a dead monkey may be a disgusting sight for motorists, Howell marvelled at any opportunity he got to see one.
He explained that when he collected the dead animals on the road and placed them in his garden, the monkeys stayed away for about two to three months.
“But after a while, they go and pull down the dead monkey and bury it. Then they come back vex and mash up everything. And there are different groups of them – some come from the west and the others from the east. If they invade at the same time, sometimes a fight breaks out.”
The youngster added that since Minister of the Environment Dr Denis Lowe called for an end to the $25 bounty per tail on monkeys in 2016, a lot of people stopped going around farms and killing them.
The final-year student at the Barbados Community College, who is pursuing an associate degree in agriculture, said he lost up to 60 per cent of his crops almost every time he planted. Spending unnecessary time in the field to observe the movements of the monkeys and ensuring they did not damage his produce, has made juggling schoolwork and his job difficult.
In spite of his losses, Howell said he could still make a living from doing what he loved most. He said he could make between $4 000 to $5 000 monthly from a single crop.
“Your earnings from selling produce could also fluctuate, depending on your market and if you get everything sold,” he explained. “If the invasions are few and I get a good market for, let’s say, cucumbers, and I sell them at $1, I can still get back something.
“You pick cucumbers every other day and I can get three to four bags of 70 or 80 kilogrammes of produce from 150 feet by seven beds, with a planting space of 12 inches.”
He uses the money he makes for school, saves a portion and reinvests in his business. His parents help sell some of his produce at the roadside on weekends.
Though the former Alleyne School student has a green thumb, he aspires to be an animal nutritionist. He raises about 300 sheep and 30 pigs.
He stressed it was important for a farmer to have a good relationship with his/her stock. Although the animals were food, he said their living conditions should be as comfortable as possible as it impacted on their development.
Howell said farming was in his blood as his parents met at the then Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic and earned their diploma in agriculture; a certificate he earned there two years ago.
Mum Joy Sandiford works at the Ministry of Agriculture’s Soil Conservation Unit, and dad Ronald Howell at Walkers Sand Quarry, both in St Andrew. (SB)
