initial assessment

Electricity and water are two of the major concerns of this island’s farmers at this time.

Head of The Barbados Agricultural Society (BAS) James Paul told The Barbados Advocate yesterday that even as an island-wide assessment must be taken of the damages wrought by Hurricane Elsa to the industry, the immediate concern was on protecting what could still be saved.

Highlighting the plight of dairy farmers, he said the cows had to be milked everyday and the liquid kept at a certain temperature within the churns before collection, or risk it being dumped.

“It’s not everyday the Pine Hill Dairy will collect, and of course, it would not have been able to collect on Friday because the conditions would not have permitted this. So hopefully today (Saturday), the Pine Hill Diary will be able to get around to all of the farmers in order to collect the milk and we hope there are no issues with that, and that there are no cases where farmers have to dump milk, especially at a time when you have a real challenge in terms of trying to cover the costs,” he said.

Noting that small farmers in particular did not have generators, Paul expressed hopes that the island’s power will soon be fully restored, especially for those raising chickens.

Paul stated while no reports had yet come indicating complete losses, several were made to the BAS of roofs being lost.

“For instance, one small chicken farmer had around 800 layers in a pen, and the roof came off and 250 of them died. So you could see, even in cases where small farmers are depending on income, layers are a big investment which bring in profit and to have the roof go off and have such a large loss at a time that is a very expensive thing,” he lamented.

Regarding crops, he stated the most impacted at this time would be those who had planted bananas and plantains, as high winds toppled many trees during the hurricane’s passage.

“While we have not received the full picture, we are doing our surveys and are checking to see what’s going on, but there is no doubt that the agricultural sector will be impacted negatively due to this system,” Paul insisted. (JMB)