ChristianValley THE
Agricultural Station
Christian Valley is a rich and fertile area deep in the forested folds of the Shekerly Mountains in southwestern Antigua. The valley is watered by streams from the hillsides around, and its annual rainfall is many times the norm for the rest of the island. In the farthest reach of this valley, more than 3 miles in from the main road between Jennings and Bolans, lies a 140 acre government agricultural station with flourishing plantations of mango, citrus, guava, cashew, soursop, avocado, golden apple, coconut, and many other tropical fruit trees. This, however, was not always so.
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initiative caused a political storm at the time, and some farmers remained on the land until the 1990s. In 1971, ten years before Antigua and Barbuda became an independent nation, a grant was received from a British development fund. The grant was used to create terraced fields for fruit trees along the contours of the lower slopes of the valley, and to build a station manager’s residence and farm buildings. Some of the well-designed stone walls defining these terraces can still be found on the slopes. Christian Valley Agricultural Station was officially opened in 1975.
In colonial times, the land in Christian Valley and neighbouring Blubber Valley as cultivated for sugar cane, and traces of the plantation houses built there can still be found today. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the surrounding hills served as a refuge for runaway African slaves known to us as the Maroons. Maroon trails on the higher slopes are still used today by foresters, farmers and by the occasional hiker seeking unspoiled terrain. By the mid-20th century Christian Valley and the adjacent estates of Blubber Valley and Dunnings were planted with sugar cane, with scattered tenant farmers also growing ground provisions.
Between 1971 and 1975 some 25 varieties of mango were introduced to the Valley by grafting from Florida collections. Pumpkins were planted among the young mango trees, and yielded a bountiful harvest, and an orchard of soursop trees flourished beneath taller coconut trees. The station was staffed by as many as 30 workers, including agricultural cadets drawn from the nearby villages of Jennings and Bolans. The station boasted several tractors, a fully equipped tree nursery with a soil sterilizer, and a shredding machine which produced coconut coir planting material from dry coconut husks.
Early in the 1970s, a local farmer, the late Sir Robert Hall, served as Minister of Agriculture and championed a program of agricultural diversification away from dependence on sugar cane. He established the government agricultural station by persuading tenant farmers to move location. Resistance to this
Christian Valley was seen as the emerging agricultural hub of the South, and there were plans to administer Cades Bay Pineapple Station and other government agricultural operations, such as the Forestry Division, from this location. During its heyday, Christian Valley Agricultural Station provided high quality planting material for fruit farmers, and promoted and