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By Eulana Weekes
St. Kitts and Nevis (WINN): Guyana’s President Mohammed Irfaan Ali has expressed concern over the impact of Hurricane Beryl on food production.
Hurricane Beryl completely devastated the agricultural and fisheries sectors on several islands, causing some farmers and fishermen to fear for their livelihoods and dealing a setback to CARICOM’s heavily invested food security agenda.
“I am very concerned that Cyclone Beryl will cause a setback to the 2025 Food Security Plan. The initial assessment findings are heartbreaking for our farmers, governments and the people of these countries. It is heartbreaking because since 2020, there has been huge investments, huge policy commitments and budget support in the agriculture sector. Investments in infrastructure, water systems, technology, crop varieties, agricultural support, (and) farm-to-market infrastructure, and many of these countries are going to lose all of these investments,” President Irfaan Ali said in a Facebook Live speech on Sunday, July 7, 2024.
Caribbean leaders have worked hard over the past few years to reduce the food import bill by 25 percent by 2025 by maximizing domestic food production and encouraging residents to consume local produce. President Ali said the islands affected by the hurricane had made progress in agriculture and aquaculture, but now they are being forced to rebuild, some from scratch.
“The initial assessment of the impact of Cyclone Beryl on the agriculture sector – and when I talk about agriculture here, I mean aquaculture, not only shows that we have lost years of hard work and investment, but the direct damage to infrastructure, crops and livelihoods in the agriculture and fisheries sectors is in the tens of millions of dollars.
It is noteworthy that Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia, Jamaica and Barbados are all islands and countries that have made substantial progress towards the 25 targets they set for 2025. So as the head of the agricultural sector, I am concerned not only about the initial investment and loss costs, but also the long-term investment costs.”
Initial assessments indicate that the need to rebuild infrastructure and find resources to inject capital into the lives of the majority of farmers and fishermen who are uninsured is one of the short-, medium- and long-term priorities.
In addition to the fisheries and agriculture sectors, tourism, which is the main economic driver for the cyclone-affected islands, has also been affected, highlighting the severity of the pandemic and its huge impact on these economies and the livelihoods of residents.
In Barbados, one third of the Bridgetown fishing complex was destroyed and more than 200 boats were damaged or destroyed.
In Jamaica, hundreds of acres of crops have been destroyed, with the worst impacts being on rural farmers whose livelihoods depend on the sale of their produce. The entire agricultural sector in St. Lucia has also been severely affected.
Agriculture and aquaculture have been destroyed, along with almost every other industry, on the islands of Carriacou, Petite Martinique, Union, Palm Island, Mero and Canouan. Rebuilding these countries will be a daunting economic and physical task.
Meanwhile, Ali called for an urgent meeting of the Caribbean Community’s Agriculture Ministerial Working Group, which is expected to focus on new, adaptable agricultural technologies, providing farmers with fast-yielding plant varieties, and product price controls to prevent household finances from being strained.
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