Portland, Jamaica - RYS joined hundreds of students and community members in Jamaica to celebrate the National Labor Day Project, May 23. The group worked tirelessly to plant over 500 vegetable 12 seedlings and 70 fruit trees, as well as to erect a greenhouse shed at the Buff Bay High School in Portland. Altogether 35,000 plants and 200,000 seeds were distributed to schools and citizens of different communities island-wide as part of the Labor Day projects.
The Portland parish manager for the Rural Agricultural Development Agency (RADA) explained that farmers would be able to purchase plants from the nursery at Buff Bay High School.
The plant nursery is an income-generating project for the school and will be important to farmers even outside the local parish as a seedling production and supply center for many new plants. Students and citizens planted sweet peppers, callaloo and tomatoes, and prepared the ground for the planting of pineapples and pak choi.