JUNCTION, St Elizabeth — Two weeks after Hurricane Beryl ravaged most of southern St Elizabeth, farmers there are determined to restore their fields despite the many challenges they are now facing.

In Chocolate Hole near Junction, Everton Holness told the Jamaica Observer that farmers are not waiting on Government assistance to replant their fields.

“We hear that help is on its way, but we have to just jump around and do what we have to do, because if we were to wait on that, we would lose all of this,” he said on Wednesday in reference to tomatoes and watermelons on his farms.

On Tuesday, Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Floyd Green said the preliminary estimate of damage done to both sectors was $5.7 billion. On Wednesday, Green announced that the Government is allocating $700 million to provide various forms of short-term assistance to farmers and fishers.

While welcoming that pledge, Holness said his colleagues have had to dip into their savings and hope for the best.

“The thing about it is you always try to put down something for a rainy day, so you have to jump towards it now. We have to jump into the savings weh you have, weh you plan to say if any sickness you have something. So right now we are praying for no sickness, because we take the sickness money gone buy fertiliser and spray. We are trying with the plants,” said Holness.

His brother Damian Holness is predicting that normality will not return to the market until the end of the year

“Not until December and what is making it worse now is there is no water, because the utility poles are down, so we are not getting any water. The earth is like it bind, so the crops are not striving like how they are supposed to. It is a crisis again with water,” said Damian.

The supply of the precious commodity has been affected by pumping and irrigation stations being without electricity.

“We have to go to Alligator Pond to get water. New Forest and Cheapside run off electricity and there are still outages there, so we have to use gas and suck up the water out of a hole. It is not drinking water, it is just for farming,” he said.

Everton Holness explained that although he lost the majority of his crops during the Category 4 storm, he has been trying to get back on his feet.

“The cantaloupe I did write it off and said it is not going to come back, but I still tried and put treatment on it the day after the storm and I saw that it changed. I fertilised it and sprayed it, it burnt out, but I am going to get some grass for it,” he said.

He stressed that the storm caused setbacks for many farmers in the breadbasket parish.

“The tomatoes never have any leaves on it and I did the same thing and I see them springing back out now, so we are getting things back together,” he said.

“When you have plans to get this crop come in at a specific time and all these setbacks, because you know you have crops that you plan to line up for the fall and then you get a delay now, so it throw you way behind,” he added.

The Holness brothers told the Observer that the prices for tomatoes, cucumbers and other crops are “sky high”.

“Everything right now the price turn up, it all tripled. Right now nuff things the price triple and you can’t get them. You can hardly get cucumber, melon, tomato, sweet pepper. The whole of those things, because the vehicles [buyers] are coming and they are going mad. They don’t know where to go,” said Everton Holness.

“They come and they are asking, ‘You know weh anything deh? You nuh have nutten? Weh you have?’ We nuh have anything to sell now,” he added.

Across the road from the Holness’ farm, Marigold Nembhard, 79, looked at what is left of her family’s lettuce farm which was battered by Beryl.

She believes the devastation on southern St Elizabeth from Hurricane Beryl was far worse than previous hurricanes.

“Beryl was worse than Gilbert [1988], Ivan [2004] and Dean [2007] combined together,” she said.

“All I saw was disaster, it was devastating. During the storm I wasn’t worried about the crop as much as I was worried about the housetop, because I heard the zinc starting to lift. I went down on my knees when I heard it start lifting. A part of it only lift and the water came into the front room wet up the bed,” she added.

Gareth Smith, vegetable and fruit vendor at Top Hill, suggested that the country will have to import to stabilise the market.

“They raised the tomato and carrot. Carrot right now is $300 in the ground and is the same $300 for the tomato. Before Beryl you could get those for $160, so it almost double,” he said.

“Everything raise and then we can’t get any sweet pepper or cucumber. We soon have to go town [Corporate Area] go buy the foreign ones. We have to import even if it isn’t for long, but right now we are going to have two months of hardship,” added Smith.