Sec­re­tary of Food Pro­duc­tion, Forestry and Fish­eries Hay­den Spencer says farm­ers and fish­er­men af­fect­ed by last week­end’s flood­ing should fol­low the re­quired process if they want to be com­pen­sat­ed for their loss.

Speak­ing at the post-Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil me­dia brief­ing at the Vic­tor E. Bruce Fi­nan­cial Com­plex, Scar­bor­ough, ear­li­er this week, Spencer said some farm­ers and fish­er­men are still not aware of the com­pen­sa­tion process. He said he dis­cov­ered this when he toured af­fect­ed ar­eas over the week­end.

Spencer not­ed that the Fish­eries De­part­ment has a com­pen­sa­tion pro­gramme for reg­is­tered fish­er­men and boat own­ers and on­ly those per­sons will be com­pen­sat­ed for their loss. Af­fect­ed per­sons should fill out the re­quired form at the De­part­ment of Ma­rine Re­source and Fish­eries, he said.

“In­ves­ti­ga­tions to the claim will be con­duct­ed by of­fi­cials from the De­part­ment of Ma­rine Re­sources in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (TEMA) ... and the com­pen­sa­tion for loss is cal­cu­lat­ed by TEMA and pay­ment dis­bursed some­time af­ter,” Spencer said.

He said per­sons suf­fer­ing the loss of crops and live­stock are re­quired to make a re­port to the Food Crop De­part­ment at Montes­sori Dri­ve, Glen Road, Scar­bor­ough.

“Ex­ten­sion of­fi­cers will vis­it the farm and as­sess the dam­ages... and they will con­duct a pre­lim­i­nary as­sess­ment of the af­fect­ed ar­eas ...to de­ter­mine the acreage de­stroyed, the type of crop and num­ber of plants ...the pos­si­bil­i­ty of re­cov­ery and the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of the plant­ed area.”

He said if live­stock was lost the ex­ten­sion of­fi­cers will al­so de­ter­mine the kind of live­stock and their stage of de­vel­op­ment be­fore de­ter­min­ing farm­ers’ com­pen­sa­tion pack­ages.

Asked about the time pe­ri­od for the com­pen­sa­tion process, Spencer said in 2014 some farm­ers were com­pen­sat­ed with­in four months.