THE Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS) said it is likely to call off the 70th staging of the annual Denbigh Agricultural, Industrial and Food Show, after the passage of Hurricane Beryl last Wednesday left the showgrounds devastated and farmers reeling.

Instead of staging the show, which was scheduled for August 4 to 6, the JAS and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining will focus on helping farmers to recover from more than $1 billion in damage caused to the nation’s farming sector by Beryl.

“With the devastation of our farmers all over Jamaica, you cannot pull them out to come to a show,” Lenworth Fulton, president of the JAS, told the Jamaica Observer late Monday. On Tuesday, Fulton said he was advised by the permanent secretary and the minister of agriculture to call off the show. It is something he said he will discuss at a board meeting Wednesday before giving the final word to farmers, sponsors and patrons.

However, Fulton on Monday, ahead of speaking to Ministry of Agriculture officials, said he was already seriously considering to recommend the board of the JAS vote to skip hosting the show this year, after he was updated on the devastation to the showground in Denbigh, Clarendon, and the impact Hurricane Beryl has on farmers.

FULTON…it doesn’t make any business sense to move farmers towards a show now and you can’t help them to rebuild their farms.

“The report on the Denbigh ground is that many of the poles, the light poles on the grounds, are down, and there are trees that have broken down the lines, and although we are there with power saws trying to cut up these things, it will take millions of dollars to rerun these lines and put them up back. Plus, we have lost the roofs from the cattle barn and most of the roof from the president’s pavilion, plus many of the stalls have been damaged,” Fulton said in giving an assessment of impact the hurricane has had on the showground to the Business Observer.

He said other facilities sustained damage as well.

“The question is, will they be able to find money to repair these structures,” he continued. Asked who he is referring to when he said “they”, Fulton outlined, “Certainly, the Jamaica Agricultural Society, if we are not assisted by government, we don’t have any money on hand to repair these and it is caused by many factors, because there are some parishes that have collected millions of dollars for rent for the JAS and they have not paid it over. Now these are the monies that we would need to repair the buildings and you cannot account for millions of dollars in the JAS, and this is where I have attacked the system to say, you can’t collect the money and cannot find it, because we need the money now to repair the JAS structures and to assist farmers,” he pointed out.

The issue about monies collected by affiliates of the JAS out in the parishes — the Associated Branch Societies (ABS) — is subject to a court case which is to be heard again in September. The allegations are that up to $53 million was collected by at least three ABS over a 10-year period, but the funds were not remitted to the JAS. The Supreme Court has ordered a forensic audit to be done of the ABS before the JAS can have its annual general meeting at which a new board will be installed, though it seems that meeting will go ahead today July 10, in defiance of the court order.

That issue aside, Fulton said another reason the Denbigh Agricultural, Industrial and Food Show will not go ahead is that it is more prudent to help the farmers at this time.

“It doesn’t make any business sense to move farmers towards a show now and you can’t help them to rebuild their farms.”

He said while the official tally is that farms suffered $1 billion in damage, what he is hearing from across the island from the farming sector means that bill could increase. He said with the show just three weeks away, it is unlikely that farmers will recover enough to be able to attend.

“Not a penny has gone to farmers as yet because it is pretty early, so they will not get anything to farmers, I will hazard a guess, until into next week, the way our government system is. By that time it will be too late to really galvanise any produce of sort to take to a show. So we are being hit two ways, with the devastation of the farmers and to find produce from the farms. Keeping a show is not something that I see which is possible,” he added.

Fulton said in preliminary discussions he had on Monday, officials from the Ministry of Agriculture expressed the same view that “they are going to be hard-pressed for a Denbigh show and at the same time to find money to help farmers to get back on their feet. So we have to choose between getting back the farmers on their feet and having a show, and that is the predicament. So the money will have to be made available from somewhere and we at the Jamaica Agricultural Society, we don’t have the money to handle the repairs.”

He said with the JAS being up to $80 million in debt, funds coming in from the Government could be ceased by the banks which are owed about $30 million of the total. The rest is owing to security firms and other individuals.

Staging the show, he said, cost $80 million last year, of which the Government contributed $20 million. He said planning was at an advanced stage, after the show, which is the premier agricultural show in the island, was launched in late June, with work on preparing the facility ongoing before the hurricane.

“If we had about 8 weeks we could have recovered to raise the money to do the repairs. I have reached out to two major sponsors so far and they are very doubtful, and one of them, our biggest support from the private sector, say they will not be able to do much at Denbigh this year. If we have the show, they will be there, but they are going to put their money behind the farmers to recover instead of spending their money in a big show because it is not appropriate to be spending money on a show and the farmers who are their number one and only customer in Jamaica, they have to see what kind of discount and grants they have to give to them to recover, and that’s the view of some of the sponsor,” he noted.

He said with the Denbigh show to be called off this year, the JAS will instead go into focusing more on the other agricultural shows. The JAS stages about eight agricultural shows each year starting from Ash Wednesday with the Hague Agricultural Show in Trelawny each year and culminating in the Denbigh Agricultural, Industrial and Food Show just ahead of the Independence holidays.

Damage to the cattle barn at the Denbigh showground in Clarendon. JAS President Lenworth Fulton said it is unlikely that the annual Denbigh Agricultural, Industrial and Food Show will be held this year after Hurricane Beryl left the grounds extensively damaged and farmers reeling.

A section of the roof at the President’s Pavilion at the Denbigh showground in Clarendon. The damage to this and other areas of the showground makes it likely that the annual Denbigh Agricultural, Industrial and Food Show will not be held this year.

A side view of the cattle barn at the Denbigh show ground that was damaged by Hurricane Beryl. The JAS said it will focus, along with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining on helping the farmers to recover rather than stage the annual Denbigh Agricultural, Industrial and Food Show that was scheduled for August 4 to 6, 2024.

A tree that has been uprooted by Hurricane Beryl at the Denbigh showground in Clarendon.