National Farm Queen looks to hand over crown

When 19-year-old Menen Ross steps onto the stage at the Denbigh Agricultural, Industrial and Food Show on July 31, it will be a bittersweet farewell, as the reigning National Farm Queen will hand over the crown to one of 13 young women who will carry on the competition’s legacy.

For Ross, a proud Clarendon native and a law student at The University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, the journey to the crown began in the dirt.

“From I was a tender age, my job, while my grandmother was rearing broiler birds, was to go into the coop, because I was the smallest one, to get the chicken so they could be killed,” she told JIS News. Her love for the sector blossomed when she joined the Jamaica 4-H Club while she attended Claude McKay High School. Though she initially tried her hands at home economics, she quickly realised that she belonged outdoors.

“I really enjoyed going on the farm, watering the plants, asking my teachers questions about how is this grown, what’s the best time to plant it, feeding the animals, feeding the chickens and stuff like that,” she said. Her path to the national stage, however, was not without setbacks. After placing as the second runner-up in a parish 4-H competition, a teenage Ross felt discouraged and almost ignored entirely.

It took encouragement from the 4-H Clarendon Parish Manager, Melissa Trowers, to convince her that she was the perfect fit to represent the central parish in the National Farm Queen Competition. Entering the pageant at just 18 , Ross was the youngest contestant and considered herself an underdog, as she did not have her own enterprise and her experience was limited. On coronation night, when she did not win a single sectional prize, she assumed the crown was out of reach. But then her name was called as the winner.

“It was really a shocker for me and a lesson to myself, that sometimes it’s not about age, or it’s not about who knows more, but the passion that you have. I knew I had it in me to win,” Ross said.

During her reign Ross used her platform to challenge the persistent stigma that agriculture is a “low-class” and demeaning sector, while advocating for the youth and women farmers.

“That’s really what the Farm Queen Competition is about – that farming is not about you going out in your dirty clothes and water boots to go in the farm every day. We have ladies that farm and can also be elegant and polished and poised within the sector,” she said.

“And that was really my goal, to target youth and target female farmers to get more involved in the agricultural sector, because that’s what we need.”

Her reign, however, was a test of resilience as the costly devastation of Hurricane Melissa disrupted the agricultural calendar, forcing the scale-back of critical events where Ross would have had the opportunity to advance her mandate. The hurricane also hit close to home as she had to evacuate the Mary Seacole Hall at The UWI where she is a resident, and while she could safely return to campus following the storm, she felt the pain of some of her sorority sisters who lost their homes.

Despite the roadblocks, which halted her ambitious plans for a community training session for broiler farmers in her community of James Hill, and smart-technology crop drainage training sessions in Bog Hole, Ross found meaningful ways to impact her peers. She was invited by the Bureau of Gender Affairs in the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, to speak with rural schoolgirls from Central and Denbigh high schools and used her journey to encourage them to get involved in agriculture.

As she reflects on the upcoming 2026 National Farm Queen Competition, Ross is overjoyed to see a fully rebranded pageant with a representative from every parish, a major shift from her year. Even more inspiring to her is the calibre of this year’s contestants.

“We have queens in the competition doing strawberry farming, pig care and management. And I was just very happy about that, to see all the young ladies coming out and showing them that… we can be beautiful, young, pretty girls who are also farmers,” she said.

As her reign draws to a close, Ross is shifting her focus to her legal career and university leadership, currently interning at the Manchester Family Court and serving as the cultural and entertainment affairs chairperson for her hall.