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Jamaican Ackee Tree

Historical perspective of the Jamaican ackee tree. There are also ackee trees for sale on this site.

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Jamaica

Found this article in the observer and thought it should be posted
Spoiling good ackee business

Saturday, December 31, 2005

Sometimes it seems that just we cannot abide by a good thing when we get it.

And Jamaica's market for ackees in the United States is a good thing - $400 million a year worth of good thing. That is the value of export of the fruit to the United States.

Gaining access to the market and developing it was no easy thing. For decades, the Americans, through their Food and Drug Administration (FDA), maintained a ban on the product, which we at home know to be a delicacy.

We also know that ackee produces a natural toxin, which is potentially harmful to humans if the fruit is not properly prepared. Most Jamaicans, for instance, know that the ackee should be properly ripe before it is picked. The pod should be allowed to open naturally on the tree before harvest. Ahead of preparation a membrane on the fruit should be removed.

While we in Jamaica each year consumed tonnes of ackee, Jamaicans living in the United States and those Americans who had developed a taste for Jamaican cuisine could not directly import the fruit, whether in its natural form or processed. The health risk was raised as a deterrent to the development of this potentially lucrative market.

It took a lot of hard work by many people, not least by the former US Ambassador to Jamaica, Mr Stan McLelland, to persuade the US authorities to lift the ban on ackee imports. Certain processors of the fruit were certified to export their product to the United States, which is done mostly packed in brine.

Indeed, just as he came to the end of his tour of duty in Jamaica, this newspaper presented Mr McLelland a copy of a Clovis cartoon depicting his effort in helping to breakdown the US ramparts against ackee.

Over the past two years or so, there have been growing concerns that some people have been breaking the rules and bypassing the standards. Some harvesters slickly sold ackees that were not allowed to come to maturity in the accepted fashion and there were suggestions that processors may not always be following all the standards.

Then last week the US FDA seized a shipment of Jamaican ackees after its tests depicted hypoglycin in the fruit. The exemption status granted to six Jamaican companies to export ackees to the United States was revoked. So now, all ackee imports to the United States will be batch-tested.

In the meantime, studies are to be done, supervised by the FDA, on the hypoglycin levels in ackees to ensure that in the future, assuming that exemptions are returned, Jamaican exporters maintain requirements.

Hopefully, those in the industry take what has happened seriously and understand the damage that could be wreaked on Jamaican industry. As a tree crop, ackee holds the potential for taking up some of the slack that will be left by the decline of preferences for sugar in Europe. It also allows for value-added in the agro-processing sector.

They should also be reminded that while Jamaicans may be the largest consumers of ackees, we are not the only ones who can see a business opportunity. Already, Mexicans and others in Latin America are exporting the fruit to the United States, so too are a handful of African countries.

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Suriname

I want to grow an ackeetree from the pod. Coudl you pls give me some instructions asto soil, watermamangement etc.

thanks, Miriam