Outgoing National Farm Queen Hands Over Crown on July 31 at Denbigh

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 Ms. 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, chasing broiler chickens on her grandmother’s poultry farm.

“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,” Ms. Ross explains in a recent interview with 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, planting and tending to crops while learning more about farming.

“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 says.

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 Ms. Ross felt discouraged and almost ignored competition 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 years old, Ms. Ross was the youngest contestant and considered herself an underdog, as she did not have her own enterprise and her experience was limited to her school’s agricultural science and helping her grandmother.

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 of the 2026 National Farm Queen Competition.

“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,” Ms. Ross says.

During her reign Ms. 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,” the National Farm Queen argues.

“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,” she adds.

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 Ms. 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 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, Ms. 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.

“[I encouraged them] not to look at 4-H as demeaning, and to try and sit Agriculture Science at Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC),” she says.

“And a lot of them were actually empowered to say, ‘Okay I'm going to join the 4-H club because this is where Menen got started.’ … If I can do it, they can do it too,” she adds.

As she reflects on the upcoming 2026 National Farm Queen Competition, Ms. 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 shares.

Ms. Ross’ own hands remain firmly in the soil. Though her gruelling first year studying law required her to relocate to Kingston, her summer back in Clarendon is spent working on her grandmother’s 300-to-400 broiler bird operation.

To further expand her impact, the National Farm Queen plans to collaborate with the Mary Seacole Hall’s Student Services and Development Manager, Dr. Nadeen Spence, who also sits on the Jamaica 4-H Clubs Board, to establish a backyard garden on the grounds of the hall of residence to introduce agriculture to the UWI campus.

As her reign draws to a close, Ms. 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.

To the young women waiting to step into her shoes on July 31, the outgoing queen offers powerful words of wisdom.

“You're all queens and no matter how the competition goes, you're all still queens.

Take advantage of your reign [and] do as much as you can. Give back to your communities, motivate more people and make use of the people you meet, the networking and the opportunities that you get. And just have fun and enjoy it,” she says.

By Vanessa James

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