Gov't says $10 billion needed to rebuild agriculture sector after Beryl

By Nakinskie Robinson   

 

Agriculture Minister Floyd Green has revealed that the agriculture sector will need some $10 billion to rebuild from the damage caused by Hurricane Beryl.

 

The Minister says the estimate of damage to the sector has skyrocketed to more than $6 billion, from the $4.7 million reported in mid July. 

 

"We're now at about $6.5 billion in damage.... But rebuilding the sector would normally take about one and a half times the costs of the loss. So we're looking at close to $10 billion that it will take to get us back to where we were before Hurricane Beryl," he revealed while speaking Thursday at a Hurricane Beryl relief handover ceremony at HiPro. 

 

With small poultry farmers being the hardest hit, HiPro has distributed 140 birds to assist with recovery.

 

The ministry has allocated $60 million to assist with the procurement of layer and broiler chicks.

 

Funds have also been disbursed to assist with infrastructural repairs.

 

Minister Green said his team has fine-tuned a response plan for greater sustainability and resilience in the sector. 

 

"So within this two-week period, we have literally already been able to put seeds in the hands of our farmers and to say go out and plant. We want to start our poultry programme next week. So HiPro's contribution, a total of about $35 million, and you're channelling $5 million directly through the ministry. And what we have done, we have established an organism to treat with that," he said, announcing a Hurricane Beryl Response Task Force through which government resources and private sector contributions will be channelled.

 

With more than 48,000 farmers affected impacted, Mr. Green said the only way to assist a majority of them is to "spread the work".  

 

He said procuring backup power supply is also on the ministry's list of priorities, after the entire national irrigation network went down because of a lack of electricity. 

 

"We have now gotten about 80 per cent back up and running, but again, the 20 per cent is in our most productive areas. Now our farmers, as we know, are ready to go back out, but they need things like water. So we have to put some allocations to secure backup generators for all our main irrigation networks."

 

Additionally, the minister said portable generators will be needed to help poultry farmers, while more storage will also be a priority.

 

"So we're pushing the Ministry of Finance to accelerate the pace that we can get some resources around putting in appropriate storage that have to be run now by renewable energy," he noted.