Ministry ramps up support for farmers hit by drought

AGRICULTURE, Fisheries, and Mining Minister Floyd Green is assuring Jamaicans that the Government will do what needs to be done to ensure that there is food security during the ongoing drought period, despite anticipated fallout in vegetable crop production.

“Thus far, we are managing through the drought, but if the drought persists it will get more difficult for our vegetable lines. Our sector knows that when we have those challenges they reach out to us and we see how we can work together to ensure that there is no break in supply,” Green told Wednesday’s post-cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House.

The minister said he is cognisant that in extended periods of drought, vegetable lines, especially leafy vegetables like cabbage and lettuce, are usually most impacted, but at this time it is “a little too early to say the extent of the impact”. He said a team from the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) is presently out in the field doing its assessment.

“I wouldn’t give any figures [on the impact of the drought on crops] as yet. I do expect that by next week we will see what is happening. Clearly, what we’re trying to do in our drought-mitigation exercise is to cauterise loss to try and help the farmers save their crops. We do expect, nonetheless, some fallout,” he said.

Green said he met with the greenhouse cluster on Monday to discuss how they can ramp up production during this time, to ensure that there are consistent supplies of vegetable lines.

He said that some fruit lines that depend heavily on water are normally impacted, as well, and there have been some challenges with the Irish potato crop, noting that the ministry was looking at steps to deal with that.

In the meantime, Green said that one of the challenges during this period is that the ministry has had to be rolling out drought mitigation from as early as February/march, when this would normally be saved for the summer months. He said that between January and March, $9 million has been spent on trucking water to farmers.

He said that the initial focus was on the parishes of Manchester and St Elizabeth but with the persistent drought, the ministry’s drought mitigation response has now expanded to Clarendon, Trelawny, Westmoreland, St Ann and Portland.

“We’ve allocated an additional $24 million to the trucking of water, which is part of a bigger programme that amounts to about $90 million. So trucking is our immediate response, and I want to say to our farmers, if you are in need of water, please contact your RADA extension officer, or your RADA parish office. Also, you can contact the National Irrigation Commission,” he said.

The minister said support will be provided to farmers for storage and drip irrigation systems. “So we’ve targeted about 600 water tanks and about 400 12-millimetre drip irrigation hoses and that distribution has already started,” he said.

Additionally, Green said Jamaica Bauxite Mining Ltd, one of the agencies under the ministry, recently acquired a new 5,000-gallon water truck that supports 4,000 farmers in St Ann’s Bay, Claremont Moneague, and surrounding communities.

He said two more water trucks will be put into service on Thursday this week to service communities in St Elizabeth and in St Catherine.

“Additionally, we’ve earmarked about $8 million to help livestock farmers. We know the difficulty that you’re facing now in this time, [it is] very hard to get the right nutritional support for your animals. And as such, we will be providing some hay, we will be providing some trucking of water to you. Again, our livestock farmers, if you are in need please, contact RADA and let’s see how we can help in these times,” he said.