ANGERED by the exploitation of customers by some farmers and its resultant domino effect on vendors, which has led to skyrocketing prices in market goods, some people in the business are advocating for the implementation of legislation to prevent price gouging in the agricultural sector.

St Mary farmer Simeon Matty said since the passage of Hurricane Beryl on July 3 he has seen where some farmers, especially those who were not greatly affected by the storm, hike prices unnecessarily. It’s a practice he condemns.

“Farmers are the only sector of business people who can raise things as much as they want to 200 or 300 per cent and it just goes through like that, and then now they pressure the Government all the time to take taxpayer money and give them fertiliser,” said Matty.

“The same taxpayer who you punish and charge so much money for the product, you are going to ask them now to re-reimburse you? And it’s not like when [supplies] get scarce or there are challenges, you have a heart towards the customers. You have no heart towards them, you just raise the things at random,” he added.

“The vendors and the farmers, they need to be more sympathetic towards people,” he stressed.

Matty shared that he has seen where prices have been raised twice within 24 hours, and consumers are left to turn over their hard-earned money.

“Although I farm and I sell sometimes, it’s really heart-rending to quote some prices to some people. When you sometimes even consider the minimum wage, and when you see a person come with $2,000 and when you see them buy half a pound of this, quarter pound of that, when you balance the nutritional value of that $2,000 it’s like they don’t even get a teaspoon of vitamins,” he reasoned.

“They need to do better, man! They can do a lot better. The vendors dem sometimes too exaggerated with the prices so you need to have some sort of Government control to go around and make sure that they not overcharging,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

“The same way like how they can control the price of supermarket goods, I guess they can do that to the farm products too,” he reasoned.

Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Floyd Green, in response to the call for regulations on prices, said that it is a matter the Government has looked at and continues to explore.

“Clearly there has to be a balance between ensuring that farmers get a good return on their investment and also ensuring that the consumers will not always have to pay too much. The real solution is trying to get adequate storage so that we can always have adequate supply,” Green told the Sunday Observer.

He reasoned that during periods of food shortages brought on by drought or heavy rainfall, the prices of produce go up, and one way to fight this is by increasing the storage life of crops to ensure a consistent supply.

The minister, during a tour of three farms in Trelawny in January, disclosed that the Government plans to establish these storage facilities in high-producing areas on the island.

Meanwhile, a produce vendor in St Mary, who did not wish to be named, further echoed the call for regulations to govern the prices of agricultural produce, adding that in some cases farmers are hiking prices on underground produce that were not affected by the storm.

“They are hiking the prices of yam, which is an underground food. The price them don’t have to be double and triple,” she argued.

“They need to be more sympathetic with people’s pockets. Something needs to be done,” she said.

But another farmer in St Mary, who gave her name as Ms Campbell, came to the defence of farmers and vendors, arguing that it is not just weather conditions that affect the prices of goods.

“We don’t look at the cost they have to pay to take produce to the market because they don’t have transportation. They have to pay for the items to carry them to the market — and it’s by the bag they’re charging you. So, if you have nuff things it’s more money, and the prices affi go up,” she reasoned, stressing that the full picture needs to be examined before steps are made to rectify the issue.