Land Degradation has been an on-going challenge in farming communities across the island. A number of initiatives are going to address this issue in Walkerswood, including the use of SOLAR power to run pumps to fill black tanks and drip irrigation lines and which will use rain and treated water harvested from the Walkerswood Caribbean Foods factory. Farmers will be able to have virtually unlimited use of irrigation water, employ fertigation methods to help eliminate the harmful use of chemical based fertilizers which degrade land ?quality? and contaminate water systems.

The WWCDF has been striving to assist the farmers of the Walkerswood Pepper Farmers Group (WWPFG) to overcome the issue of irrigation water availability and to this end have built a pond which collects water from rain water from the roof of the Walkerswood factory which is run into a collection pond which in turn will overflow to two ponds on the farm site and provide irrigation water with the technology of solar pumps pumping water from the ponds into black tanks through a sand filtration system. The project would also be used as an educational demonstration for rain water collection, the use of SOLAR, the use of drip irrigation and fertigation, and an expansion of the acreage under cultivation.

The Project will create a model "cluster" of an environmentally friendly and profitable farmers group in order to demonstrate sustainable land management through the use of environmentally friendly farming practices, application of solar energy technology and generatlion of sustainable livelihoods to both the agricultural and environmental sectors of Jamaica.