Ask John Jones about the best thing he has ever tasted and he takes you back to a tomato. A purple salad tomato, grown a couple of years ago, whose memory has survived every meal since. For a man who has played basketball far from home, it is a small, delicious reason to keep his feet in Barbadian soil.
There is something irresistible about a farmer who remembers a harvest by its flavour. Before a chef has dressed the plate or a mixologist has found the perfect balance in a glass, John is already thinking about what an ingredient might become. This year, with chefs placing orders for the Barbados Food and Rum Festival, his work is part of the pleasure waiting to happen.
The tall former basketball player, known as The Bajan Farmer, has a sporting history of his own alongside that of his sister, Barbadian Olympian Akela Jones. He represented Barbados at CARIFTA and played college basketball at Illinois State University before a professional career overseas. There is an appealing change of scale in the story. Hands accustomed to a basketball now attend to the beginnings of a leaf.
Farming, though, was there early.
John traces his love of it to his young teenage years at Sterling Children’s Home. Growing food became a way to connect with others. Later, at college, he changed his major from International Business to Agricultural Business, choosing what he describes as his first love. Time spent volunteering on farms in South Australia added practical experience to that interest, exposing him to different ways of working the land.
His explanation of why he stayed with it is wonderfully uncomplicated.
“It comes down to the fundamental joy of putting your hands in the soil and bringing seeds to life,” he says. “There’s truly nothing better than eating something you grew.”
At Thirteen Acre Farms, that pleasure comes with considerable preparation. Salad tomatoes are his favourite crop, and the work begins months before there is anything to pick. He describes creating the right growing conditions, tending each plant, watching the first leaves appear and the growth gather pace.
“Every single plant requires dedicated care,” he says. “No detail can be overlooked.”
An athlete might recognise the principle. The result everyone sees depends on work done long before anyone is watching. In John’s account of his tomatoes, the reward is almost edible before he reaches the harvest. You begin to understand why that purple variety has stayed with him. He remembers the growing as well as the eating.
There are other temptations. His farm’s produce has included sweet potatoes, cassava, yams and watermelons, with purple sweet peppers and cauliflower also finding a place in his growing repertoire. It is an invitation to picture a generous Barbadian table, sweet potato yielding beneath a fork, watermelon offering its cool, clean sweetness between richer mouthfuls.
Then John introduces the Golden Lady. The melon, he explains, has a texture similar to honeydew, grows to a larger average size and becomes exceptionally sweet when fully ripe. He would love a mixologist to turn it into a Golden Lady Martini. Even the suggestion has you imagining the fruit chilled in a glass, its sweetness given a little room to linger.
That drink is his wish, rather than a promised festival offering. The possibility is the point. A grower knows an ingredient through its whole life and may have ideas worth taking back to the bar.
For this year’s festival, John says chefs have already ordered local fruits, vegetables and meats. He is looking forward to showing what island farmers can supply and what is in season. His willingness to get involved rests on something that matters well beyond a single menu.
“Anyone who supports local farmers and wants to build a lasting relationship will always have my support.”
The festival brings those relationships into delicious focus, giving its farm-to-table approach a practical meaning. When chefs buy from Barbadian farmers, fresh local produce reaches guests’ plates and the money spent on ingredients supports the island’s agricultural sector. For growers such as John, those orders provide income and an opportunity to build relationships with chefs, restaurants and hotels that can continue beyond the festival. Guests encounter the finished dish or carefully balanced drink, but behind each flavour is someone who has spent months tending what went into it. The pleasure at the table begins with the work on the farm.
His ambitions also reach into the ordinary business of getting dinner on the table. Asked about the challenges farmers face, he points to making produce easier to buy outside traditional supermarkets. His comparison is familiar to anyone who knows the anticipation of an ice cream truck making its Sunday rounds. Why should fresh local food not reach people with that same convenience?
“My purpose has always been making fresh food accessible to everyone islandwide.”
That sense of purpose has brought recognition. John received the 2026 Champions of Change Award, presented by the organisers of North America’s 50 Best Restaurants, for his work in farming and food education.
Ask what he would show a visitor first, however, and he chooses his “Wall of Love”. It carries the handprints of children who have spent time on the farm.
“Every time I walk past it, my heart warms knowing I’ve sown seeds of joy in everyone who has spent time here.”
One child left him with a particularly lasting memory. John gave the boy a pepper plant. Nine weeks later, he called to show John his harvest. The pleasure that first drew John towards farming was finding its way into someone else’s life.
“You never fully realise how impactful your work can be until you step out and inspire growth in someone else.”
For festival guests, John’s story offers a reason to pause over an ingredient, ask where it came from and savour the answer. For the children visiting his farm, it offers something they can try for themselves.
Somewhere, a boy has discovered what he can do with a pepper plant. John knows how that feeling stays with you. He is still talking about those purple tomatoes.
(PR)
