BURTON
"WE ARE in the process of delivering extension service to farmers, particularly small farmers. Recently we had some bad experiences in the west where we discovered for the first time in the country the incident of Mocko disease and this has had a devastating effect on the small farmers in the areas in which the disease was discovered.
We have been able to carry out some corrective action in preventing the spread to adjoining parishes with assistance from the Banana Board and one of our larger producers. Our main emphasis at this time is to bring the improved technology which is available to the industry, within the industry to the small farmers so that they can improve their standard of living and help to boost the earning from banana through foreign exchange generation.
Our main problem, however, is that of consistency in supply of green fruit for the local market, but with the introduction of the various assistance programmes, I think this will be solved in a short while.
MATTER OF COST
One of the problems being faced, however, by many small farmers is the matter of cost of inputs to maintain the industry at the levels that are desirable, and in the case of farmers in the west, they have a particular problem in getting spraying material for the control of Leaf Spot disease in that they have to get it all the way from Portland to transport it to their operations in the west. Sometimes it is not readily available and this slows down their crop care pro-grammes and even-tually leads to reduced yields, which have a bad influence and effect on the farmers within the respective areas.
I don't want to appear to be an apologist for the Government on policies, but from RADA's standpoint I just like to remind Dr. Hall that RADA is really an extension agency and we operate within the confines of the programme that we have been asked to deliver.
However, mention was made of sugar and it could be a situation where the persons in the industry are more aggressive than the persons in the banana industry, and hence the level of assistance perceived to be granted to them. We provide extension service, but the banana industry had or still has its own extension service and as such we don't want to be in competition with two extension providers serving the same clients. We tailor our delivery to the areas of needs.
However, if any banana farmer, because we are there to serve all farmers, if any banana farmer require our assistance and intervention we are willing to provide that and in that regard our Social Services and Home Economics unit is looking always and consistently at ways of diversifying the products from banana that it can be more meaningful, profit wise, to the producers especially the women farmers.
