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Agro-Investment Corporation, an agri-business promotion and facilitation agency, has estimated losses to its network at around $690 million in the wake of Hurricane Melissa, but that number is preliminary and could rise.
Meanwhile, a tally of the overall fallout in the agricultural sector is yet to emerge.
The Category 5 storm on October 28 caused severe damage to the nation’s agricultural investment infrastructure, said Agro-Invest CEO Vivion Scully in a statement.
Preliminary assessments “indicate $688.25 million in losses across 10 agro parks and 16 production zones, impacting over 250 farmers and investors and an estimated 1,500 acres of crop production”, he said.
Melissa destroyed crops, greenhouses, roads, and drainage systems.
“Supply chain disruptions are projected for four to six months, with significant economic impacts on rural employment and agri-business operations,” Scully said.
Meanwhile, Mario Figueroa, general manager of JP Farms in St Mary, said the company’s entire banana and plantain crops were wiped out, essentially for the second year in a row, following on the 94 per cent loss caused Hurricane Beryl in July last year.
Figueroa put the preliminary loss from Melissa at $600 million, saying JP Farms lost 300 acres of banana and 100 acres of plantain in production. However, most of the 100 acres of pineapples in production weathered the storm, he added.
JP Farms staff is now focused on getting the fields back in production after the hurricane.
“We have made our assessment, we contacted our workers to see if they were okay; we met today with our production and with our commercial team, because in this situation you just need to try to keep your teams focused because we cannot waste time. We have immediately started the resuscitation of the farm,” Figueroa said.
Last year, in the wake of Hurricane Beryl, it took about six months for JP Farms to recover, but the company and its staff accomplished it six weeks earlier than projected.
“Following Beryl, when there was 94 per cent damage, all of our workers did an excellent job, working for extended periods and sometimes on weekends, because when a plant is toppled, time is crucial. Materials can spoil if you don’t treat them fast. That’s why we appreciate the effort of the team in rehabilitating the farm,” Figueroa said.
Businessman Gassan Azan also suffered some damage to his greenhouse facility in Lakes Pen, St Catherine, but indicated that the damage appeared not to have been as bad as during Beryl last year.
“My farm has so far survived … the plastic was not ripped off,” Azan said of the high-tech facility which supplies produce such as lettuce, tomatoes and sweet peppers to his four MegaMart superstores throughout Jamaica.
He was more concerned about what action the government will take to allow imported food into the country for the benefit of the Jamaican people.
“Government has to give some import licences to allow food to come in, and probably duty-free, if they know what’s good for them. The people have no money, and the money that’s out there now is going to go back into rebuilding their houses,” Azan said.
Over in Cobbla, Manchester, Tarique Bennett said he is out of pocket to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars following the passage of Melissa, which destroyed six acres of lettuce.
He is hoping that he will have some produce before Christmas, as lettuce takes about nine weeks to be ready for harvest.
“Before the storm hit Jamaica, the price of lettuce was quite high (about $500 at farm gate price). But now it’s not even about price any more, because we don’t have anything to sell,” the young farmer said.
Bennett says farmers need assistance with seeds, fertiliser, water tanks and greenhouse fixtures to quickly get back in business.
In a statement on Wednesday, Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining Floyd Green indicated support for those affected by Melissa, but did not comment on the losses in dollar terms.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness said the damage to public infrastructure across Jamaica may be as high as US$7 billion, which is around $1.1 trillion in local currency.
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