By Roy Sanford, Staff ReporterWESTERN BUREAU:
FARMERS IN St. Elizabeth say they are reeling from several problems that are not only draining their pockets, but undermining the agricultural sector in the parish.
The farmers contend that importation of agricultural produce by local supermarkets, the high cost of fertiliser and other farm implements and the "neglect" of the agricultural sector by the government are crippling their businesses. They also say that the negligence by hotels and higglers to pay outstanding sums owed to farmers, coupled with minimal profits from the sale of farm produce are also posing a threat to the industry.
Lewis Ricketts, an 81-year-old farmer of Southfield is blaming the high cost of agricultural inputs, as the biggest problem facing his operations. "I have to buy seeds, fertiliser, spray, even water," he told The Gleaner. "When I have to buy all these things at such an expensive price, how can I survive?"
Beverly Parkinson agreed but added that the saturation of the market is posing a problem. "There is too much produce on the market," she said. "So when you go the market with your produce you cannot get a good price." She said that presently she has a heap of tomatoes rotting away on her property and she has no idea what to do. "I cannot even get $5 a pound for the tomato," she noted. She said she had recently resorted to feeding the tomatoes to pigs. "There is nothing else I can do with it now."
According to Parkinson, a possible solution is the establishment of a Farmers Market in St. Elizabeth. "If the government really cares about us farmers, they should build a market for us so we could sell our own produce," she said.
For Dione Allen, a farmer from the community of Exton, the biggest problem is the availability of water. "We have no water in this area," she noted. "And we need water for our crops." She said that farmers in the area buy water all the time, some paying as much as $4,000 for a load of water. In addition, farmers in the area cannot find buyers for their produce. "No one is buying our produce because everything in the supermarket come from foreign," she added. Devon Vassel, a farmer from Seaview agreed that there is too much foreign produce in the local markets. "I think the importation of foreign goods is the main problem facing farmers right now," he remarked. He further stated that farmers are not getting money for produce they sell. "When you sell to the higglers, it takes weeks upon weeks to get some money," he noted. "And in the end only the farmers suffer."
Farmers are not the only ones complaining. Patricia Morgan-Gayle, a higgler who buys agricultural produce in St. Elizabeth and resells them at the Coronation Market in Kingston stated that she is hardly making a profit from her business. She blames high cost of production for the lack of profit. "Production is too high," she said. "And in such a situation we cannot get the price we want at the market because people are complaining that the prices are too high."
