There is no shortage of cane bills (machete used for cutting sugar cane) around Judy Cumberbatch’s house and every one is a treasure for Barbados’ leading female cane-cutter.
The sharp-edged stainless steel implements, well worn after 33 years, which she stores out of sight less they fall into the wrong hands, mean just as much to her as the well carved mahogany replicas standing out among a display of the many trophies she has won over the years competing in the Crop Over Queen Of The Crop competition.
It is now is now more than 33 years she has been toiling in cane fields in the northern parishes of Barbados.
“In 1990 I say ‘Lord, I am tired; I am going to stop’. But every year I keep going, then in 1995 I said, I done’, but you got the feeling and you go back, you say it is an honest day’s work and as you go on you get stronger and stronger.”
Cumberbatch perseveres at the job of cane-cutting despite the menancing cow itch bush which lies in wait for the unsuspecting in some of the cane fields where she works, the smaller yields of cane which translate into less earnings from the job and other deterrents.
It is the one job from which she derived satisfaction and though she has left at times to work in manufacturing and in luxury homes as a maid or housekeeper, it is to the canefield she has always returned.
“I was working at a factory. On mornings you used to have to catch the 6 a.m. bus to get to work in town on time, and then I got home at 8 at night. So then I decided to go back to agriculture.”
Her love for the land was fostered in childhood, watching her grandparents “work their ground” in Lakes, and Cleland, St Andrew. In her primary school days at St Andrew primary, she lent a hand during the crop season.
At age 17, Cumberbatch went to work at Cleland Plantation in St Andrew as an agricultural labourer doing weeding and heaping up the already cut canes during the crop season.
“Back then we used to do day work (were paid by the day) and the work was not so hard but I gradually I get into it.”
She reflected on conditions in the sugar industry back then and remarked on the exodus of the many young people who used to find agriculture attractive and the contract arrangement that brought additional workers from other Caribbean islands. Those young people have moved on to greener pastures where “the money is easier” and “they don’t have to do as much hard work”, while the contracts for the on-Barbadians, in most cases, have ended.
As she see it, the changes over the years have been “drastic” and even though she remains, it is in the face of challenges that cause her to shake her head in resignation. The actual cane-cutting has become tougher since “you don’t see the juicy canes no more.” In addition there is always the threat of the menacing cow itch bush.
Cumberbatch won her first Queen Of the Crop crown in 1994 while working at Portland plantation. She took a break from the job for two years, choosing to work in the comfort of a home as a maid.
But she could not resist the call when agriculture beckoned again in 1996, saying “I was back in agriculture from then.”
She had weighed the decision of early morning out of bed to wait for an unreliable bus against being ready by 5:30 a.m. to be picked up by the plantation truck to be transported to her workplace.
She explained: “I stayed in agriculture that long because at that time I had the kids and you had to pay bus fare to go to a job in town, but the (agricultural) work was near to me and I say I will stay and do the work.”
“In the crop season we would start to work when the morning cleared out and we would work until 7 at night.”
There were times when this crop time routine went on seven days a week, without a day off except Easter Sunday and Good Friday. From the days when she earned about $11 per tonne for the canes she cut, she now takes home just over $25 per tonne for cutting and piling.
“Sometimes I used to get about over 30-something tonnes a week and depending on the amount of money per tonne, you could get a decent wage.”
Still she does not complain. It is the means through which she puts food on the table for herself and her four children, only one of whom has followed her into agriculture.
That son, a carpenter, turns to the land to supplement his income when necessary, but for her daughters work on the plantation is hard, menial work that they do not care to attempt. They have found gainful employment in other fields.
“I am the onliest one in the family still doing agriculture work,” Cumberbatch says smiling. She expresses her satisfaction at doing what she does, saying, “When you’re cutting canes your body does feel real good. You does got a different feeling. You know it is harvest time and you does feel different to cut the canes.”
She has devised her own way of defying the punishing heat beating down on the canefield. “On morning when you work and around nine or ten the sun can be so hot, so you will shade your head out of the sun and then when it get cool a little bit you go back and work and when you see midday you try to shade out of that sun and then you work late on evenings.”
Her modest home on a quarter-acre of land, high on a breezy scenic point in French Village, St Peter, is the place she looks forward to at the end of such days.
“Sometimes when I come in and I feel tired I will go and sit down or lie down and relax,” she said. “Otherwise I go out into the ground and work”, she added, pointing to the land stretching from the back of her house and planted with vegetables.
Cumberbatch has copped Queen Of The Crop title 13 consecutive times and while every year she tells herself, “Lord, well I done”, she starts all over again the next year.
