Early Interventions by Government Yielding Results in Agricultural Sector

Early interventions by the Government are beginning to yield results in the agricultural sector, following the devastation caused by Hurricane Melissa, with signs of renewed production already emerging.

Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining, Hon. Floyd Green, said swift action by the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) allowed farmers to begin replanting shortly after the hurricane.

He was speaking at a hybrid Recovery and Resilience Forum, hosted by RADA on Wednesday (December 17).

“RADA would have had seeds on hand at the time when Hurricane Melissa struck, so we were able to quickly get out and start that distribution,” Minister Green said, explaining that the exercise was “clearly targeted, not widescale as we’re doing now, targeted to the farmers who were able to go again.”

He noted that 6,500 packs of seeds were distributed within two weeks after the Hurricane, while an additional 2,000 bags of fertiliser were also provided during the same period.

The Minister said the early response has already had a positive impact. “We are already seeing good uptick in production of things like lettuce,” he said.

Mr. Green explained that the effectiveness of the response is rooted in lessons learnt from previous disasters, particularly Hurricane Beryl, which informed the establishment of a more coordinated disaster response system.

“We have institutionalised our disaster management framework, and we’ve institutionalised our response framework in the form of our Hurricane Melissa Disaster Recovery Task Force,” he said.

He noted that the task force enables the Ministry to streamline benefits, track assistance, and avoid duplication, while quickly identifying gaps in support.

Despite the progress, Minister Green underscored the severity of the damage caused by Hurricane Melissa, describing it as unprecedented.

“Hurricane Melissa has really struck a devastating blow to the agricultural sector. We’ve never seen this – the extent of damage that Melissa brought, we’ve never seen in our history in relation to agriculture,” he said.

The hurricane struck at a time when the sector was on course for its strongest performance, to date.

“We were having an exceptional year in agriculture. We were having our best year ever in agriculture,” the Minister said, adding that production had been projected to reach 900,000 tonnes for the first time.

Minister Green acknowledged that recovery will take time, noting that more than 70,000 farmers were affected by the hurricane.

“It will take us some time to get to all the farmers. I want the farmers to bear with us. I want the fishers to bear with us… just understand that we are coming and understand that the Government will stand with you in this time,” he said.

The Minister also commended RADA for hosting the recovery forum, describing communication and engagement as critical components of effective crisis response.

“I’ve always felt that a critical component of responding to any crisis has to be communication and providing platforms for the publics that we serve to be able to engage us,” Minister Green said.