La Soufriere, I thank you!

Tue, Sep 02 , 2014

Editor: Alston Becket Cyrus in his calypso ST VINCENT I THANK YOU, also thanked La Soufriere for all the good things Soufriere has done for us. One may think that Becket is eccentric to think that La Soufriere has done good to us when all we could associate Soufriere with is disaster; but Becket may have had visions above the ordinary.{{more}}

St Vincent because of its rich volcanic soil makes it premier in the growing of root crops. St Vincent is the only place apart from Chili that historically grew arrowroot. Orange Hill at one time boasted of having the largest single coconut estate in the world. St Vincent Sea Island cotton was premier in the days of slavery and colonialism.

When CARIFTA, the fore-runner to CARICOM came into being in 1972, St Vincent was given the monopoly in the production and marketing of root crops including carrots. All these were made possible because of Soufriere: a classic case of “out of evil cometh good”.

In an article published in THE NEWS and the SEARCHLIGHT of 13/06/2014, entitled AGRICULTURE AND MINING THE WAY TO SVG’s ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, I suggested among other things that a vehicular road be established linking Trinity Falls on the Walibou River to Bamboo Range on the Rabbacca River and the construction of a container port at Richmond. In the area of Morgan Woods via Petit Walibou on to Bamboo Range is an almost in-exhaustible deposit of rich volcanic soil as is evident in many other areas of St Vincent.

I am suggesting that a processing plant be established in the Richmond area to package this soil for export. This soil could be packaged into 5lb and 10 lb (2.28Kg and 4.56Kg) sacks for export. If properly packaged and labelled this product can find itself on any supermarket or hardware store shelf, in any part of the world, a product any one can acquire for the purpose of growing potted plants or for their green houses.

An almost inexhaustible billion dollar industry is waiting to be exploited. Thanks to La Soufriere. Let’s market an SVG VOLCANIC SOIL.

Do not bemoan the fact that climate changes, but rejoice in your power to greet the change.

Matthew Thomas