Cane Farmers Suffer Major Losses in Recent Floods

Several villages in the northern districts have suffered quite a bit of losses to their homes due to flooding caused by recent rains. Over the weekend, videos showing floodwaters rushing through the low-lying villages painted a dismal picture. And while that is bad enough, there was also significant damage to cane fields in those districts. The tallies are still being conducted as farmers are just now returning to their cane fields to check on the extent of their losses. Today News Five’s Marion Ali stopped in Libertad Village, and spoke with the B.S.C.F.A.’s Libertad Branch Chairman, Estevan Villanueva about the damages.

 

Marion Ali, Reporting

This was how one farmer’s cane field looked when we visited Libertad Village today. All the investments that went into this work will be a loss for him and his family. We could not find them, but we found Estevan Villanueva, the BSCFA’s Chairman for the Libertad branch.

 

Estevan Villanueva, Chairman, BSCFA Libertad Village

“We have about 150 to 200 acres in flood.  Okay. Apart, we have mature can  that’s in flood and we don’t have a good road to, to come out to take out the, that can,  that’s a loss right now.  We don’t know if if the factory goes ahead and it makes good time after this, this time that is coming, we maybe we can take it or not. We will lose all of those cane.”

 

 

The access road to one of the cane fields looked like a river, with floodwaters streaming through. Villanueva told News Five that the floods also damaged the roads that were repaired.

 

 

 

 

Estevan Villanueva

“They try to fix it but right now with this flooding the current carries Gallaudet they don’t like if they don’t do nothing. When it’s flooded, everything goes to the to the lower part, it carries the dirt from the road  and that breaks solid dirt alley road so that and make it harder to weed to take out cane and it costs a lot.”

 

 

Villanueva says that cane farmers absorb all the losses when their fields are inundated. He adds that what we saw in Libertad is just a small part of the damage suffered in the north.

 

Estevan Villanueva

“In Corozal we have like Caledonia, we have like San Victor, we’re nearby to San Victor, we have um, um, those two villages that have more than Damages on us like like Douglas branch, they are you have already have a bigger flood.”

 

 

Now with a hurricane staring at Belize at the end of this week, Villanueva says they are preparing for a bad crop.

 

Estevan Villanueva

“If more flood, we will have more damage, more losing of cane because, the water kills the cane and all those canes that is coming up, everything will die and we will have a bad crop next year if the flood comes.”

 

Marion Ali

“The hurricane –“

 

Estevan Villanueva

“Yes.”

 

Marion Ali for News Five.