PRIME Minister P J Patterson yesterday announced that the government will be making $200 million available immediately to farmers to facilitate the start up of local vegetable and small stock production and the resumption of the fishing industry after damage by Hurricane Ivan.

Patterson, in a statement to parliament yesterday, said the estimated total loss in agriculture from Hurricane Ivan has been estimated in excess of six billion dollars, with domestic agriculture accounting for approximately $2.3 billion.

“While export agriculture will have access to other sources of funding for its recovery, such as insurance proceeds, it is necessary to give our small farmers who produce primarily for the local market some immediate support,” the prime minister said of his decision to allocate the $200 million.

Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) MPs, however, criticised the allocation as being much too small to help the farmers.

But Patterson insisted that the amount was merely to clean up the land and provide planting material and fertlizer.

“The $200 million is a start,” he responded to the Opposition MPs.

A near total devastation of the island’s agricultural sector was reported to the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS) by its field representatives from across the island last Friday. The reports provided the basis for a JAS report to Minister of Agriculture Roger Clarke, which informed the Cabinet’s assessment of the situation in the sector.

JAS representatives reported that at least 90 per cent of bananas had been blown down and washed away.

“Bananas and plantains in St Mary are 99 per cent down,” said Clement Campbell, the parish’s JAS branch president.

JAS vice-president Glen Harris said that St James suffered an almost 100 per cent damage to its banana and plantain production. He said that the production of banana and plantain chips in the area was knocked out.

Over 150 hectares of bananas in Manchester were also destroyed.

St Ann representative Bob Miller also said that his parish had lost almost 100 per cent of its banana cultivation. Miller said that the reports from all the major banana growing parishes – St Thomas, Portland, Clarendon, St Catherine, St Ann and St Mary were similar.

Campbell said that bananas and plantains suffered the most “because they are so susceptible to the wind”. But, there were reports that most local crops had suffered very serious damage.

“Cash crops on a whole were wiped out,” Harris reported. He said that the only hope was for the dasheen crop.

“I don’t know how the farmers are going to get back on their foot,” said Westmoreland’s Owen Dobson. He said that many of the farmers were still unable to return to their farms and were still living in shelters.

In Clarendon the sugar crop was devastated, hundreds of poultry farms destroyed and cash crops such as pumpkins and carrots washed away.

St. Ann’s Ralston Johnson said that nearly 400 hectares of food crops worth $100 million had been destroyed, as well as 20 hectares of beans and 18 hectares of condiments.

Hanover’s Milton Murdoch said that more than 477 hectares of mainly yam, plantains and coconuts, as well as vegetables for the Negril resort market, were destroyed.

In St Mary, cocoa and banana trees had been destroyed.