Lettuce Farmer Richard Paris boosts yields and sustainability with FAO workshop on Protected Structures

Charlestown, Nevis – October 9, 2025 – On the island of Nevis, Richard Paris is growing a legacy. “Paris’ leafy greens” is his homegrown hydroponic business, putting fresh lettuce on plates across the islands of Saint Kitts and Nevis. An architect by training and former hotel food and beverage manager, Richard saw how great meals were missed by reliance on imported lettuce, which was sometimes wilted by the time it reached the kitchen.

“I realized there was a real need, not just for farming, but for commercial production of fresh greens,” he says.  Richard turned his eyes to farming, particularly hydroponics, after being inspired by Ronald “Bankie” King, a local mentor who had built a small home system. “When I saw his setup, it just clicked”, he shares. He secured a loan, farming permits, imported a
specialized system and over the course of two years, built Nevis’ first large-scale hydroponic greenhouse himself.

Launching in 2019, his product was an instant hit: crisp lettuce with no bitterness due to filtered, mineral-enriched water. It also has a four-week shelf life though it rarely lasts that long. At 7:00am, customers are already waiting in the car park of some supermarkets for his lettuce. Richard currently supplies lettuce to seven supermarket locations: two in Nevis and five in Saint Kitts.

However, the deliveries to Saint Kitts necessitate meticulous planning and coordination, resembling scenes from an action movie.  At 6:30AM he quickly loads fresh bags of “Paris’ Leafy Greens” into crates as the engine hums anxiously.  He loads the truck, tires crunching gravel as he checks the clock, and reaches the dockyard by 7:00AM to swiftly haul off the crates. At 7:10AM, the ferry sets off for its 35-minute sail off to Saint Kitts, where delivery trucks await the shipment.

They are received and neatly stacked on supermarket shelves by 8:30AM. Mission completed! To boost yields and meet rising demand, Richard attended the FAO-led workshop “Strengthening Protected Agriculture to Improve People’s Livelihoods, Food and Nutrition Security”. Here, he received sensors and learned to use them in his daily operations, monitoring key components such as air temperature, relative humidity, water
pH and temperature.

Now, he can pinpoint critical issues in real time and the data shows that, within six months, productivity leaped from 1 098 heads a month to 1 555.  “I had no background in farming, just a dream. Now, on Sundays while most people are
relaxing, I am tweaking pH levels and recalibrating sensors, he stated. Richard is not stopping there—he’s building a second greenhouse, three times larger than the first, to scale up production and expand into herbs like basil. “My goal is to cut
lettuce imports, ease the island’s food bill, and build a farming legacy for my children,” he says.