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Homes, crops and livelihoods were decimated, and recovery for Grenada’s agriculture industry remains a constant swim against the tide, especially for the once burgeoning nutmeg sector. In 2003, Belmont Estate’s cocoa farm was certified organic.īut then Hurricane Ivan struck Grenada in 2004. Green was looking for a local supplier, and in 2000 Nyack Compton boldly decided to make the transition to organic cocoa production. Just up the road in Hermitage, the Grenada Chocolate Factory had been founded by environmental idealist Mott Green, and was making chocolate from organically grown cocoa. It has helped me to plan and structure our product, to appreciate what works and how to best present it.” “I studied several successful models in the Caribbean, South and Central America, Europe and the US, and continue to do so. If we could integrate all this into the agricultural work we were already doing, we would have an agri-tourism enterprise. “The plan was to showcase our farm and beautiful environment, our products, processes and people, while at the same time adding fun, education, cuisine, culture and tradition. “I had to find a way to revitalise the estate and ensure its financial viability and sustainability. “Necessity was the mother of invention,” she said. In 2002, Nyack Compton, granddaughter of Norbert and Lyris Nyack, opened the gates to the public, and Belmont became both a functioning estate and a pioneering agri-tourism business. In 1944 it was purchased by the Nyacks, an entrepreneurial Grenadian family of Indian descent who lived in Hermitage.

A century later, when Grenada was ceded to Britain, the estate successively became the property of two British families, the Aitchesons and the Houstons, who grew sugar, cotton, cocoa, nutmeg and bananas. Its history can be traced to the late 1600s when French settlers grew coffee here. She tells me that not only is the goat’s cheese delicious, but it is also completely natural and made on the estate, from the milk of a herd of thoroughbreds that roam a large paddock on the hillside above the ambrosial restaurant that we are sharing with a busload of tourists.īetween the pastoral villages of Hermitage and Tivoli, the 400-acre Belmont Estate lies among the lush hills of Grenada’s scenic northeastern parish of St Patrick. Shadel Nyack Compton, managing director of Belmont Estate, is buzzing with enthusiasm.