A wide variety of vegetables and fruits are grown in the area around Lucea, such as
pulses,
cereals, and
root vegetables.
Sugar,
cocoa,
coffee,
bananas, and
rum are important exports of Jamaica. In Lucea, there is a need for domestic cultivators and rural farmers to feed the island's people and visitors. Fruits, vegetables, and flowers are also grown for local consumption. One of the staples of Lucea is the
breadfruit. A Rural Agricultural Development Authority farming project along with resident farmers have been "supplying the hotel sector on a consistent basis" and "bring vegetables to the tables of its sophisticated guests", according to
The Jamaican Observer. This linkage between the tourism demands and the up-and-coming agricultural communities provides an economic opportunity for Lucea. Therefore, the local farmers mostly produce vegetables, roots and tubers (
sweet potatoes and yams), some fruits and flowers (
hibiscus and Bauhinia or Poor Man's Orchid). As a result, this leaves the larger crop of sugar, cocoa and coffee to the industrial plantations of Jamaica. These major agricultural industries can bring in revenues in the millions meanwhile, leaving the smaller cultivators to provide exotic vegetables for the resort chain restaurants and tourism industries.
Lucea Yams Lucea Yams are a major product of the parish. In the post-emancipation period the formerly enslaved people in the parish began to cultivate the soft, white, delicately-flavoured
yam are named for the town. In the 19th and early 20th century yams grown in the parish were exported from the port of Lucea to places like
Colón and
Cuba which had sizable Jamaican populations because of the thousands who had migrated to work on the
Panama Canal and on sugar and banana plantations. == Tourism ==