CARIMAC Times 2016: The JREAM Edition Journalists Reviving Awareness of what Matters | Page 157

D

ouglas, 55, became a farmer after
being a teacher for several years,
in hope of earning more from his
efforts. He cultivates a variety
of crops and ground provisions,
including Scotch bonnet peppers,
lettuce, pak choi, carrots, yams and cocoa, on
a farm in McNie District in the garden parish
of St. Ann.
The unpredictability of rainfall has made
farming procedures more expensive. Drought
conditions have eased but another extreme
has set in.

“Moderate rainfall is very good for us but the
excessive rainfall that we are having now…
affects us badly, in that it destroys the crops
and the seeds that we sow. It drowns it by
flooding the fields. We have to be over-dropping
seeds because each time, it is either ‘dumped’
or washed away because of soil erosion. The
seeds are expensive.”
As a result, he and other farmers have had to
adjust their practices to reduce the impact
of excessive rainfall on their yields, but his
losses have still reached what he described as
devastating levels.

year. This has resulted in an increased presence
of water tanks. Douglas shared that he and
other farmers use black tanks to store water
to irrigate crops.
That has created a new problem. The Ministry
of Health has found that tanks, especially those
left uncovered, have acted as facilitators of
mosquito-borne diseases such as chikungunya
and dengue fever.
The lack of water has also caused an increase in
the Hand, Foot and Mouth disease in children.
And fires, lasting for days due to dryness and
heavy winds, have destroyed several acres of
major export crop, Blue Mountain coffee this
year.
As territories in the Caribbean experience extreme
changes in aspects of weather, including wind
speed, temperature and more clearly, rainfall stakeholders are charged with recognising the
need for action and solutions.
Then Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Senator A J Nicholson, recently raised concerns
about the fate of Caribbean states, if climate
change is not adequately addressed.

“I lost five to six million [ Jamaican] dollars
because of the need to fetch, buy and procure
water during the drought period that started
in the middle of 2014 [ June] and continued into
the last quarter of 2015,” Douglas recounted.

Speaking at the 70th session of the United Nations
General Assembly Debate, Nicholson said he
believes the issue being faced by countries
such as Jamaica is “an existential one”, making
reference to various manifestations of climate
change in recent times.

Context of conditions

Global dilemma

Annually, Jamaica struggles with drought
conditions that last longer with each following

Dr. Michael Taylor, from the University of the
West Indies, Mona Campus’ Climate Change

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