SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

shar­lene.ram­per­sad@guardian.co.tt

In the af­ter­math of over 30 ex­plo­sive erup­tions of the La Soufriere vol­cano in St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, the coun­try’s agri­cul­ture sec­tor has been dec­i­mat­ed– cost­ing the is­land more than EC$150 mil­lion (East­ern Caribbean dol­lars).

That is over TT$377 mil­lion

In a re­lease from the In­ter-Amer­i­can In­sti­tute for Co­op­er­a­tion on Agri­cul­ture (IICA), the coun­try’s Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Saboto Cae­sar said the ex­plo­sive erup­tions are af­fect­ing the avail­abil­i­ty and af­ford­abil­i­ty of food on the is­land.

Cae­sar, who was speak­ing be­fore the IICA Spe­cial Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mis­sion on Man­age­ment Is­sues, out­lined the is­sues fac­ing the coun­try.

“We are fac­ing a cat­a­stro­phe in agri­cul­ture, fish­ing, road in­fra­struc­ture and oth­er ar­eas. We have prob­lems that af­fect food se­cu­ri­ty and sov­er­eign­ty, the af­ford­abil­i­ty, ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty and avail­abil­i­ty of food is at risk,” he said.

As he thanked the coun­tries and or­gan­i­sa­tions that have as­sist­ed the SVG, Cae­sar said the coun­try needs help to ad­dress this hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis.

Cae­sar said the $150 mil­lion loss has caused strong neg­a­tive im­pacts on fam­i­ly farm­ing and mi­cro-pro­duc­ers in the coun­try, as well on the per­cent­age of agri­cul­ture in the GDP.

He said the SVG Gov­ern­ment will launch a plat­form for the re­con­struc­tion of the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor soon.

To do this, they re­quire as­sis­tance.

He said, “I would like to un­der­score the im­por­tance of this reci­procity, and I am con­fi­dent that we will con­tin­ue to re­ceive sup­port at this very dif­fi­cult time. I am re­quest­ing your ef­forts to mo­bi­lize re­sources in the most ad­e­quate way to as­sist farm­ers, fish­er­men and oth­ers in need.”

Cae­sar said the Gov­ern­ment would present a doc­u­ment to the IICA in the next few days.

Since La Soufriere be­gan to ex­plo­sive­ly erupt on April 9, some 20,000 peo­ple liv­ing in the red and or­ange zones of the vol­cano have had to evac­u­ate, flee­ing their homes and leav­ing every­thing they own be­hind.

As Cae­sar said, farm­ers were es­pe­cial­ly hard hit, los­ing their crops to the ash that blan­ket­ed fields and homes alike.

Lennox Lamp­kin is one such farmer.

His farm is lo­cat­ed in Rose Hall, in the vol­cano’s or­ange zone.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, he said he plants most­ly fruit crops, in­clud­ing sour sop, pa­paya (paw paw), guavas, and av­o­ca­does.

He does not ex­port to Trinidad but said he has got­ten re­quests for pulp from T&T.

Be­fore La Soufriere erupt­ed ex­plo­sive­ly Lamp­kin’s was go­ing to in­vest in ma­chin­ery to start pulp­ing so he could be­gin to ex­port.

But like many oth­ers on the is­land, he is left now to count his loss­es.

“I have had maybe 70 to 80 per cent dev­as­ta­tion but I think maybe in the long run when I prune back, I will prob­a­bly lose about 60 per cent of my pro­duc­tion of av­o­ca­does go­ing for­ward. I lost quite a lot of av­o­ca­does that were just go­ing to get in­to pro­duc­tion phase...be­cause of the heavy ash fall, a lot of the trees were bro­ken down,” Lamp­kin said.

He al­so lost three of the 19 sheep he farmed on the first day of the ex­plo­sive erup­tions.

And while Moth­er Na­ture has put him in this predica­ment, Lamp­kin will have to wait for Her to act again be­fore he can start to re­build.

“I am just wait­ing on rain, be­cause if rain falls, I still have a few inch­es of ash on the farm on the ground... so there is not much I can do at this point. I am ac­tu­al­ly pre­pared to re­plant as soon as the rain comes, if that is next week, that means I will start next week,” he said.

Lamp­kin said he has a half-acre plot that he can plant short crops on as he ex­plained it would not be prac­ti­cal for him to sit around and wait.

And as he keeps a watch­ful eye on La Soufriere, Lamp­kin is al­so an­tic­i­pat­ing the up­com­ing hur­ri­cane sea­son.

“I am go­ing to fo­cus on tak­ing the farm com­plete­ly off the grid, go­ing so­lar so that I am pre­pared be­cause re­mem­ber, in the next 36 to 37 days, we are in­to the 2021 hur­ri­cane sea­son be­cause we are in the hur­ri­cane belt.”

He said in ad­di­tion to the im­me­di­ate need for potable wa­ter on the is­land, farm­ers will al­so need agri­cul­tur­al sup­plies, in­clud­ing seeds.

Lamp­kin said the vol­cano’s re­cent erup­tions have not more ash on his farm, as the erup­tions are heavy but wide, with less ver­ti­cal force.