Mark Titus, The Gleaner

Farmers in Lititz, St Elizabeth, are bemoaning the lack of support from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and its affiliate, the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA), as they wage a relentless battle against a myriad of problems, which include the dreaded beat army worm, which has been destroying their crops.

“We are suffering because of the beat army worm,” Bunny Barnes, a farmer, told Western Focus on Monday. “Any field that they get into, they eat it down within a day and then move on to other properties.”

According to Barnes, who describes himself as the number-one Gleaner reader in St Elizabeth, the farmers in Lititz have been investing a lot of time and money in the production of crops such as onion, scallion, thyme, tomatoes, melons, and peanuts but they have not been able to maximise on their earnings because of the beat army worm.

While acknowledging that he is aware of the challenges posed by the beat army worm to farmers in St Elizabeth, Donovan Stanberry, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, was not able to provide any specifics on its impact on the farming sector. Efforts to contact RADA’s acting chief executive officer Harold Spaulding, were unsuccessful.

According to experts familiar with the destructive nature of the beat army worm, the pest can wreak serious havoc on agricultural crops if left to multiply.

Its name is derived from its feeding habits, which sees them eating everything in an area. After exhausting that food supply, they move like a well-trained army to the next available source.

As if the beat army worm invasion were not already destructive enough, the farmers of Lititz are also being hampered by a chronic water-supply problem, which is also negatively affecting production; the lack of markets, which leave them without enough outlets to dispose of their produce; and competition from foreign imports, which is having a choking effect on the local market.

“What consumers must know is that the foreign products might be prettier, but they are not healthier,” said 47-year-old farmer, Leroy ‘Lee’ Simpson. “Our own Government is not doing us any favours by allowing them in the country.”

“So it’s a triple effect: the beat army worm destroying our crop; no water to prepare our crops; and no support to market our goods,” said Simpson, who nonetheless believes that farming holds the key to Jamaica’s economic survival.

However, while he is generally dissatisfied with the input of the state, Simpson is thankful for the market vendors, who purchase their goods, making it possible for them to care for their families.

“What they cannot buy have to stay there and spoil, but this is what I have been doing from I was a youth,” said Simpson. “I want to do nothing else so I am saying, it is now time for more action and less talk.”

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