How Underwater Statues And Organic Farms Help Grenada Stay Sustainable

04.05.2024 - 11:51 / forbes.com

Theresa Marryshow is an organic farmer on an unlikely mission.

It's not that she grows some of the tastiest arugula, cucumbers, and lettuce on the east side of Grenada, a small island in the British West Indies — although she does.

She also has a message for visitors: This is a place with the potential to feed itself and its guests sustainably.

"People don't understand how the food gets here," says Marryshow, a retired government agricultural officer who manages her family farm in Bacolet, St. David, in the rural southeastern part of the island. "They don't know that someone prepared the soil and planted it and took care of it and harvested it."

Visitors come to Grenada for its white sandy beaches and rainforests and to hang out at its famous all-inclusive resorts like Sandals Sandals La Source Grenada and Spice Island Beach Resort. But Marryshow, who is also the president of the Grenada Network of Rural Women Producers, wants them to come away with new ideas about sustainability and ways to save the planet.

She's getting help from forward-looking hotels, environmental activists who are building remarkable underwater attractions, and other farmers who have a spiritual connection to the land. And once visitors understand the scope of the problem — and the possible solutions — Marryshow says a lightbulb goes off, "and they get it."

This is part five in a series about sustainable tourism in Central America and the Caribbean. Here's part one about sustainability in Panama, part two about saving Bonaire's number one tourist attraction, part three about Aruba’s struggles to stay sustainable, and part four about Curaçao’s conservation efforts.

Cooperative farming caught on during the pandemic, when Grenada, like many islands, was cut off from the rest of the world. Marryshow had started her organic farm on a small plot of land. The Sandals Foundation, a nonprofit organization that helps local communities, asked if she could supply it with the fruits and vegetables that the resort needed. The foundation also offered to help her build a new deck and kitchen to accommodate the increased demand. Marryshow supplied Sandals with boxes of lettuce, mint, peppers and herbs regularly.

Marryshow says the idea grew quickly.

"Soon, other hotels and restaurants were interested in what we had," she says.

Marryshow then helped create a network of farmers who specialized in various fruits or vegetables. Some supplied fruit such as mangos, bananas and breadfruit. Others grew herbs like oregano and mint.

"Oftentimes, we tap into their network to find what we need from them," says Deleon Forrester, a spokeswoman for Sandals La Source Grenada.

Several times a month, Marryshow also hosts a group of guests from Sandals La Source