Kingston vendor offers free breadfruit to hurricane clean-up volunteers

The morning after the catastrophic passage of Hurricane Melissa, 48-year-old vendor Eyan Williams stood at the front of Kidd Lane in Kingston, roasting 18 breadfruits over a blazing wood fire. Using a truck rim as a makeshift oven, Williams said the gesture was his way of giving back as his community began clearing debris left by the storm.

“Normally mi woulda deh yah a sell fruit, but today mi ready fi share,” he said, turning a breadfruit with a stick. “This hurricane never so terrible for us where we had to leave our homes. It’s the country areas that get it the worst, and mi worry fi dem.”

Hurricane Melissa, a Category 5 system, made landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday, battering the island for hours with sustained winds as high as 175 miles per hour. Preliminary reports indicate widespread damage to critical farming parishes including St Elizabeth, Clarendon, St Ann, Westmoreland and Portland, with thousands of acres of crops destroyed and several roads rendered impassable by flooding and landslides.

Williams said he has already seen the effects of the storm on the food supply.

“Almighty, the food a go expensive because them get hit so hard. Whatever them save them haffi go put something pon it, and people still a go bawl,” he said. “Mi know it a go hard, but [since] Sainty (St Elizabeth) feed we, a our time fi feed Sainty and support them. All of the farming parishes that feed we, we haffi look after them now.”

Williams added that anyone passing by to help with the clean-up could get a breadfruit free of cost.

“Mi a hustler, but it’s not everybody mi can sell to. Mi can give away too and make people feel nice,” he said.

Standing nearby, another resident who identified himself only as 'Burger', who has lived in Kidd Lane for about a decade, said the community faced the storm with quiet determination.

“We have warrior blood inna we. We hold it out and just pack up the things and gwaan watch. We knew if it came to the worst we would move to the shelters, but nobody from the community moved.”

Economist Keenan Falconer said Jamaicans should brace for a prolonged period of elevated food prices, especially as the country heads into the Christmas season.

“We’ll have a similar experience to what we saw after Hurricane Beryl,” he said, noting that diminished agricultural supplies and higher demand will drive up costs.

Falconer warned that the ripple effects could extend well into next year.

“After Beryl, elevated prices lasted nearly a year before stabilising, and many farmers still haven’t recovered. Melissa has only made that situation worse,” he explained. “We can expect significant increases across all food groups, but particularly tubers, root crops, and vegetables.”

Asked whether Jamaica’s import system could cushion the blow, Falconer said that, while imports will remain a necessary part of the country’s food security mix, they come with risks.

“As a small island developing state, we’ll always have to import to some degree. We can substitute where appropriate, but there are always considerations of price and quality between local and imported produce.”

He added that policy interventions, such as crop insurance and disaster funding for farmers, must now take centrestage.

“Given the increased severity of weather events due to climate change, those efforts must be scaled up and properly funded,” Falconer said.

In the longer term, he said he believed both consumers and farmers will have to adapt.

“We’ll all have to prepare for higher prices and adjust our household budgets accordingly,” he advised. “For farmers, government and policymakers need to collaborate with industry stakeholders to embed resilience in the agricultural sector, because this will be a continuing threat.”

Back in Kidd Lane, as residents cleared the debris, Williams said he hoped Jamaicans would not forget the farmers who have traditionally sustained them.

“Mi can roast, mi can sell, but dem people deh plant fi we. Wwe haffi support them.”

tiffany.pryce@gleanerjm.com