Some farmers in Manchester are reportedly buckling under the weight of the severe drought and rising costs among other issues affecting cultivators in the central Jamaica parish.

Omar Robinson, who works on his uncle’s farm in Rowes Corner near New Forest in Manchester, stated that the lack of proper irrigation and high overhead costs have left farmers in his area dejected.

“It has been a long drought… coupled with the irrigation problems that we would have suffered over the period and having to buy water… when I spoke to my uncle a week ago he was planning to call it a day because the input costs are really bearing on him,” Robinson said.

“It is not just the drought but the prices of fertiliser and the things that he would use on the farm are very expensive. If it was a case where water was readily available, that would minimise the input costs that are really hampering farmers,” added Robinson, who noted that a bag of fertliser costs as much as $13,500, nearly double the price it was two to three years ago.

Transportation costs have also increased significantly in recent times, as truck drivers who transport goods into Kingston have hiked prices due to the surge in petrol prices and toll rates, according to Robinson. He said the drought and the crippling costs have resulted in a significant falloff in supply.

“The best quality crops that you can find in Kingston are from this section of Jamaica – St Elizabeth and Manchester… We still have trucks going into Kingston and other areas of Jamaica two times a week but the amount on the trucks might not be the same as couple years back,” Robinson explained.

Tameka Barrett, a farmer and vendor from Manchester who sells in the Coronation Market in Kingston, concurred,

“The quantity of the produce drop whole heap, because normally on a weekly basis I would carry in like 17 bags or so but now I am not carrying more than like five or six, sometimes even three of four. It is a big, big drop,” Barrett said.

The development has resulted in the high and unstable market prices that consumers are currently experiencing, but recent rain has offered hope that prices will stabilize at least in time for the bumper Christmas season – if the crops aren’t destroyed.

“Well, I guess by Christmas things will come in because we start get rain. So we can do a lot of planting and probably food will be flushy for Christmas. But then again, if we get too much rain on the crop, the rain will drown it and will wash out the seeds and the prices will be even higher. So we still can’t say for sure if things will be good come Christmas, we just have to keep watching,” Barrett advised.

Still, Robinson believes more needs to be done by the agriculture ministry and the Rural Agriculture Development Authority (RADA) to support farmers in the parish.

Among those who are in desperate need of assistance, he said, are farmers from Spring Ground where a bush fire broke out a few months ago affecting a number of farms in the area. Many farmers have not rebounded from the incident, he said.

He added, “In the south Manchester area or even southeast St Elizabeth, you will find that some of the land is still bare because the farmers are not getting the required support from the Ministry of Agriculture.”