CBA Jamaica - JCDT - Success Story

CBA Jamaica: Reducing erosion and landslides with sustainable agriculture

August 2011

In recent years, the cash cropped-based communities of Woodford and Cascade have experienced increased soil erosion and landslides from climate change-associated longer drought periods, higher temperatures,and high intensity rains that force local farmers to seek new farmland further up the mountain sides.  In a continual cycle of land degradation, farmers clear forest land for agriculture when landslides and soil erosion render previous fields unusable only to put the new fields at  increased the risk for future erosion by clearing the protective ground cover. The Jamaica Conservations and Development Trust (JDCT) implemented a project that helped break the vicious cycle of degradation and land encroachment on the nearby Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park.  Using sustainable agricultural techniques such as soil conservation, organic farming, and greenhouse farming,farmers are successfully increasing the quality and quantity of their crops. The project has increased economic opportunities for local farmers and has reduced their susceptibility to climate change impacts.