HAGUE, Trelawny — Hundreds of fisherfolk scrambling to recover from adverse weather brought on by last week’s cold front have been promised millions of dollars in help from the Government.

“We’ve identified about $20 million that we are going to be using to provide some support to our fishers,” Agriculture Minister Floyd Green disclosed during the opening ceremony for the Hague Agricultural Show in Trelawny on Wednesday.

“This is to help them to get their pots, to help them to repair their boats and help them to get back out there so that they can continue to do what they love, which is to feed our nation,” he said.

Between last Monday and Thursday, huge waves battered the shoreline, mainly along the western end of the north coast. Green said preliminary indicators have provided some insight into the magnitude of the hit taken by individuals who make a living from the sea.

“We’ve noticed that over 200 fishers are indirectly impacted by what happened; they weren’t able to go out, but we have already gotten the information for about 45 fishers who were directly impacted. Some of them lost pots, some of them had damage to their boats, in fact we estimate that over 1,000 pots were lost in the recent weather event,” he stated.

The minister explained that in addition to providing financial support, in the short term, the National Fisheries Authority has been tasked with doing an in-depth assessment of the damage suffered by industry players.

“When I speak to our fishers across the north coast and across the south coast, they tell me that in the past 60 years they’ve never seen waves the size of what they saw last week,” Green stressed.

He added that there are plans under way to assist fisherfolk who will be impacted by the depletion of fish stock in near-shore fishing areas.

“One of our main areas of focus for this year is to train our fishers to help them retool so that they can go further out so they can do long-line fishing,” he said.

“In fact, we are bringing in a vessel that will be used to train our fishers in long-line fishing so that they can get better catches and increase their supply,” Green added.

He was speaking at the start of Lent, when there is usually a high demand for fish. However, the minister said he does not anticipate that customers will face any challenges purchasing fish.

“I don’t think we will have a difficulty in terms of the supply of fish; but what we want to do is to ensure that more of that supply is local,” he told the
Jamaica Observer following the event.