BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – WITH the Agriculture Sector suffering millions of dollars in damage from the passage of Hurricanes Maria and Irma, Minister Eugene Hamilton is optimistic that there would be a rebound before any shortage could be felt in St. Kitts and Nevis.
Currently, citizens and residents are seeing a shortage of a number of items in supermarkets and also in the municipal markets.
The shortage is compounded by the fact that neighbouring Dominica, one of the main suppliers of produce, has been devastated by Hurricane Maria.
Hamilton told SKNVibes he is very hopeful that the farming community could respond very quickly “so that there wouldn’t be any shortage”.
“We now have to understand that we cannot waste resources or waste food. We have a habit of being careless and generally just wasting,” he noted.
The Minister explained that people need to understand at this time, and in general, that there should be no wasting of food, water or resources due to the passage of storms.
He recently gave a breakdown of the cost from the passage of the Hurricane Irma.
“The breakdown is somewhere in the vicinity of $3 million for the Fisheries Sector. The building in Dieppe Bay that houses the fisheries section that they have there, suffered 1,200sq of roofing, and it also suffered some equipment losses. So, some of the costs have gone towards that.
“We had people who were fishermen who have lost some of their fishing equipment. Those that are out in the water, the fishing traps, there were some boats that got some damage,” Hamilton explained.
According to the Minister, when it comes to the rebuilding process, the Ministry of Agriculture would put together its budget for submission to Cabinet.
He stated that any economic resource from overseas that could benefit agriculture would go towards assisting those farmers who were affected by the hurricanes.
“I can’t say at this time how much grant aid we may have received as a result of the hurricane, and I can’t say how much would go towards that,” Hamilton said.
Following the passage of Hurricane Irma, Prime Minister Dr. Timothy Harris indicated that the Agriculture Sector had seen $10,497,000 in damage, while the overall damage was pegged at $53M.
The Federal Government had noted that Hurricane Maria caused $38.5M damage to St. Kitts, and that the Agriculture Sector was included in that figure.
The Nevis Island Assembly pegged its figure at EC$50M from the same storm.
