Corentyne farmers bemoan plantain disease attack on crops

Aug 03, 2012 News

Several farmers engaged in plantain farming in the Upper Corentyne area say that their crops are under threat from ‘plantain disease’ or Black Sigatoka.
Ramnarace Narine, a plantain farmer for over 10 years, told Kaieteur News that his Crabwood Creek farm was under attack recently with dry leaves “from bottom to top” on his plants.

Plantain farmer, Ramnarace Narine

Chemicals were used by farmers to combat the disease but to no avail.
The disease affects the root and shoot of the plants “and melts out the tree”.
He added, too, that officials from the Ministry of Agriculture had visited the farms in the area recently, took samples and photographs and promised to return with findings but failed to do so. “They go and cut some tree and took photos and brought out pieces [of plants] and nothing happened”.
Narine also plants pumpkins and beans.
The farmer is calling on agri officials to visit their operations more often. Over 5,000 roots of plantains have been damaged by the disease, and the farmer has incurred losses to the tune of hundreds of thousands.
Another farmer, Rishidatt Chandradatt of Crabwood Creek noted that the plants attain a height of about two feet and then the leaves become dry and “them ones that burst, when you done get the bunch, the plantains start to turn ‘fine fine’ and they dry off and then the main shoot on top get damaged”.
Tests were made, he said, by some officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and they promised to return with results “and unto now we ain’t see nothing and we do the biggest farming up here”.
He plants approximately 7,000 roots and he has lost all of them to the plantain disease, incurring losses of over $300,000.
The disease has been affecting him over a year now. “When the plantains get ‘lil size, the tree break halfway”.
Additionally, the farmer noted that the drug ‘Pirate’ was introduced to fight off a disease in the cabbage plants and it worked for the first, “but now it does not work and the worm eats the plants out”.
It was used to kill the worms in cabbage, “and first couple morning, the drugs worked ‘strong strong’ and now we using it and it doesn’t do anything”.