Market shoppers can expect the prices of some produce to decrease, but vendors are still picking up the pieces from the recent rain.

When the Jamaica Observer took a trip to Coronation Market, downtown Kingston, on Thursday, this reporter observed vendors switching out price cards to reflect a decrease in the cost for some agricultural produce by as much as 60 per cent.

“For the two weeks that pass and gone carrot was so very dear and now you can get a carrot for even $40 and $50 a pound…a month before, you could pay $150 per pound,” said market vendor Imo while speaking with the Sunday Finance as she showed us the few carrots she had left to sell by close to midday.

A similar decline in prices was noted for other produce.

“I’d buy a thousand pound [of pak choi] every week. Like this week, I buy [pak choi] for $40 and the farmer was saying 60, I say 50 and we agree on that, and I’m selling for 80 and 100 [dollars per pound],” said market vendor Gloria Powell, who explained that two weeks ago she was selling pak choi for $250 per pound.

Gloria further explained that just last week she had more produce and could not sell because of how high the price was. While the cost of pak choi has seen a decline, cabbage, however, is still expensive, and the regular marketgoers quickly noticed the changes.

“Last month I spent $20,000 and it was good market. The stuff last me three weeks… since I came, I just started shopping and I’m almost through with my list and I don’t gone 10 thousand dollars as yet,” Kadeen, a shopper, explained.

She added, though, that the prices are fluctuating based on the particular product, but she was happy that this week market prices were well within her budget, giving her more purchasing power.

“It was a little more expensive, and with the $10,000 that you normally take to the market you couldn’t get everything, or if you got everything you had to get it in less proportion,” Doreen, a regular shopper at Coronation Market explained as she compared her expenses from last month with this month’s while purchasing a piece of pumpkin.

Farmers’ discontent

Although consumers are feeling more confident this week at the market, some vendors and farmers are not so happy as the weather conditions remain a challenge. One farmer explained to Sunday Finance that the cost of cabbage is so high at the moment because planting cabbage in a drought would have been like gambling for them.

“A lot of people ‘fraid fi plant it in the dry. Innah the dry it take a lot of water and insect run a lot. The farmers are scared to plant it ’cause to see their money run down the drain, it rough, you know,” Sinclair, a farmer, explained, pointing to a shortage of cabbage in the market.

Similarly, pumpkin, a produce heavily dependent on water, was in scarce supply. Marlon Ferguson, a pumpkin farmer and vendor, says pumpkin prices won’t be going down any time soon unless it rains heavily.

“Because of the drought now, everything a bun down in a field, so wi a lose in a field wicked, wicked pan rapid… See all the lettuce dem, the pumpkin dem dry up and drop off a tree. So when pumpkin dry up and everything gets lighted mi haffi dash dem weh,” Ferguson said.

He added that he is looking at losses close to a million dollars, and though it has been better for others, he says he’s yet to see an improvement in his profits.

And while the rain brought some relief, vendors of sweet peppers said it did more harm than good. One vendor, Ladine Harris, showed us a bag of rotten sweet peppers that she handpicked out of the batch she bought from a farmer and was just realising how many she was unable to sell.

“Me haffi a pick out the rotten one dem fi show back the farmer say mi ago lose too.”

When the Sunday Finance asked Ladine if she thought the prices would go down even further in coming weeks, she responded, “Look here, food haffi eat, so if you cyaa buy pound buy half, fa you haffi eat.”