Gustav causes major damage to crops in Cayman Islands

By Terresa McCall
Reporter-SKNVibes.com

~~Adz:Right~~GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands – CAYMANIAN farmers are reporting that they have suffered significant losses to their crops resultant of Hurricane Gustav which dumped rain and brought high winds to the islands sometime last week.

News emanating from that country states that damage to the crops was felt particularly on Grand Cayman and Cayman Brac with the banana crops taking a major blow.

According to the Caymanian Compass, Grand Cayman’s largest banana farm which also supplies supermarkets with most of their bananas, Futherland Farms, took a massive hit with most of the trees downed. It is estimated that somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of the crop has been damaged.

The Compass reports Manager of Futherland Farms Andre Williams as saying the possibility exists that somewhere between 200 and 300 cases of bananas might be salvageable.

 “It’s a big loss. We supply the whole island with bananas, usually about 350 to 400 cases per week,” Williams said as quoted by the Compass.

The Compass also reported that a North Side farmer, Danny Rivers, said the plantain crop which occupied about two thirds of his four and a half-acre farm has been wiped out.

“We have four and a half acres and I would say two–thirds of that is plantain and the whole crop is gone. I can only feed them to the cows. It’s quite a big loss,” Rivers said.

Although they suffered damages, some farmers were not as unfortunate as others and will be able to salvage most of their crops.

As a consequence of Gustav’s rage, suggestions were made to supermarkets on the Brac to begin importing those goods they would have normally purchased from local farmers.

The Caymanian Compass further informed that the island’s biggest farmer, Margarito Chantilope, reported that his crops on the Bluff took a devastating blow.

“I took a good licking…mangoes, pears, cassava, neeseberry tree, banana; all of that is down…Some supermarkets will just have to start importing for a while…It’s a big loss but I’m not worried about it. I just thank God I am here.”

Another cultivator, whose farm is located on the Bluff, reported to the Caymanian Compass that on his one-acre lot, “everything is flat except the orange trees”.  The farmer further explained that he straightened his mango trees but could not say at this point if they would recover.