DRY CRY

LACK OF RAIN HURTING ST JOHN FARMERS

By Sheria Brathwaite

The current drought-like conditions are taking a toll on Project Phoenix farmers at Wakefield, St John.
Farmers in that district reported to Barbados TODAY that they were struggling to produce crops due to the lack of water and some have had to put their operations on hold as a result.
They explained that they heavily relied on rainfall which was supplemented by water from the Barbados Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation’s water truck on a weekly basis. However, they said that conditions had become so dry, their water supply was not enough and they were forced to halt operations.
Some farmers asserted that they would not be in this predicament if the agricultural service connections they paid the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) for last year had been installed.
“I paid for a connection on Thursday, May 12, 2022, and up to now I still don’t have a supply from BWA, and I am not the only farmer out here who applied for water,” said one farmer, a participant of Project Phoenix which falls under Government’s Project CARE (Community Agriculture Response and Empowerment), a farming initiative for community members to grow their own food on lots.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the farmer added, “If I had a supply I could have
helped my fellow farmers and I wouldn’t have had to incur the losses I did. I thought the rains we were getting in December last year would have continued into the beginning of the year and I bought $1 000 worth of seedlings, but that didn’t happen. What didn’t dry up grew but the plant’s growth was retarded.
Added to that, I still had to buy spray for pests and, in an attempt to help give the plants a fighting chance, I bought products to give them nutrients they lacked. But it was costing me more trying to save them than I was earning.
So for the time being I am on pause.”
The farmer had watermelons, sweet peppers and tomatoes planted.
Patrick Clarke also said he was forced to pause until the rains came. His focus now is on ensuring his ground is clear of grass and weeds.
“I halt operations because getting water where I am is tough. It just seems the water system in Barbados will drop low . . . so it will be a strain on Government to get water out, so the farmers are feeling a little squeeze,” he said.
“But from my experience, people should try to control the weeds as much as possible and get the land prepared so when rain comes, you are ready. Preparing the land is 80 per cent of the work so if you have the ground clean you don’t have to work hard.”
Clarke intends to plant cassava, pumpkins and hot peppers when the dry season ends.
In a statement published last week, Director of the Barbados Meteorological Services Sabu Best said the rain forecast for the coming weeks will be low, with the only relief coming at the start of the Atlantic hurricane season in June.
The prediction for April is that rainfall will be 48 per cent below average; May, 19 per cent below average rainfall; and June, 11 per cent below average.
Farmer Maria Simpson said this year’s dry spell was worse than 2022, pointing out that the occasional rain during the dry season last year was sufficient enough to bring her crops to harvest.
She said that while the BADMC was “doing its best” to get water to Wakefield farmers, it also had to cater to all the other rain-fed farming districts across the island and there was “only so much they could do”.
She said she had three water totes and a 1 200-gallon tank and even though the water truck was coming, the earth was so dry the crops needed more water than usual.
“The water truck is supposed to come every day or every other day. Every day would be good for someone like me who has in seedlings which will want even more water and care. So I have to manage and control what I get. I have three totes and if I turn on the 1 200 gallon tank and feed everything that is in the ground, they would [run dry] in less than an hour. So I have to make sure I don’t overuse the water in case the water truck doesn’t come. That would cause the plants to go through a shock and start to dry off and I can’t deal with that,” she said.
“Right now, fertiliser and pesticide [are] expensive and then when it comes to pricing the product, it has to be marked up cheap. So the price on the vegetables really want doing something about because if everything going up, farmers should also be able to carry prices to cover the cost of the inputs.”
Simpson said the situation was putting a dent in her profits and as time went by, she found herself having to sell below market price just to get her crops moving.
“Then they have Bajans that don’t want to pay and then I end up having to bargain and give them a price they could work with so the products won’t waste and my family and I could get feed. So we need standard prices on vegetables.
“When I go back and I do my calculations, nothing adds up right. So the same way I can see the total of the inputs making sense, I want to see my income making sense too, which it ain’t. So it is stressful,” said the small farmer.
Simpson added that the dry conditions were also impacting her farming practices. She explained that certain fertilisers such as 12-12-17-2 were only effective when the plant was absorbing water and even though the plants were getting little to no water, she “still put it down… because [the plants need a boost]”.
“I also try to hand-wet some crops to make sure they get water,” she said.
Simpson’s crops include local cabbage, sweet peppers, cassava and tomato.
Joseph Hackett also said the lack of water was a major problem for him. He said he did not like the idea of depending heavily on a water truck, especially since several farmers across the island had to depend on it as well.
He said there were often disruptions in service due to the number of people depending on the truck.
Hackett added that some of his crops such as cucumbers and okras had dried up as a result of not having the much-needed water.

sheriabrathwaite@barbadostoday.bb