Farmers facing price squeeze

A veteran farmer is pushing back against the perception that farmers are responsible for the high prices consumers pay for food.

Angella Jones, a 53-year-old from Flagaman with more than 30 years experience in agriculture, says farmers often have little or no control over the price at which their produce is sold.

“When you hear them, when you watch the news now, you hear the consumers say, ‘Oh, the farmers make the price so expensive’. It’s not true,” Jones said.

According to Jones, farmers are often forced to accept whatever price buyers offer, particularly when dealing with perishable crops that cannot be stored for long.

“We don’t determine our price. No, we can’t bargain only when it short,” she said.

She said the problem becomes more obvious when produce is abundant on the market.

If there is a glut, farmers are being paid as little as $10 per pound for some produce. She said this was recently the case with tomatoes.

According to the married mother of two, farmers can sell their produce for relatively little, only to see it resold to consumers at significantly higher prices.

“They will buy it from you for $10 and go back and sell it for $150 and $200,” she said.

For Jones, refusing a buyer’s offer is often not a realistic option.

Once produce has been harvested, farmers have to move it quickly before it spoils.

‘You don’t want

it spoiled’

“You don’t have a choice because you don’t want it spoiled, so you just let it go for little or nothing,” she said.

That leaves farmers carrying the cost of production while having limited influence over what consumers eventually pay.

However, she laments that farmers have to pay for seeds, fertiliser, water, labour, transportation and other inputs, all of which are expensive before they can sell their crops.

“Most of my work I do myself now,” she said, explaining that she plants, weeds and sprays her own crops to reduce costs.

Even so, she said the expenses continue to rise.

Jones recalled paying nearly $9,000 for a pack of tomato seeds, while labour and other production costs add further pressure.

“You can imagine picking tomatoes for $20. I did that last year,” she said. “You can imagine bending down and picking 100 pounds of tomatoes for $2,000.”

She said hiring someone to spray can cost about $4,000, forcing her to do much of the work herself.

Jones said the issue is particularly painful with onions, which she describes as one of the more expensive crops to produce.

“Because over three months, you affi a pick it out, and a you finger yuh affi use, and then you affi make sure you spray it and spray it good. You affi pay people to sow it or plant it. You affi buy the grass, and you affi buy the water because it tek water.

“And you affi make sure you fertilise it good. And then you have to buy the onion bag fi nearly a $100 bag. And then after you put it in the bag, you make it stay there and spoil because nobody is there to buy from you,” she said.

“When you sow onion, you sow like four or five packs of onion, and by the water, wet it, and then halfway through the crop, it starts to spoil. And if you even get it, it spoils.

“And then when you get it, you can’t get it to sell because of the import, or the government offers you $5,000 per bag.”

Farmers must spend months planting, weeding, spraying and fertilising the crop before harvesting and packaging it.

However, even after making that investment, farmers can struggle to find buyers at prices that cover their costs.

Lost about $500,000 on onions alone

Since the drought started, Jones estimates that she has lost about $500,000 on onions alone.

“Not even $50,000 I get. I get exactly $35,000,” she said.

The drought has compounded the problem by increasing the need for water, which is costly and adds to already rising production costs.

Added to that, Jones and other farmers are faced with imported onions entering the market while they are trying to sell their crops.

“When we have it, and they import it, then we can’t get it sold,” she said. “We have to throw it away,” she said.

The experience has left Jones questioning whether she should continue planting onions.

She said she will not accept any onion seeds from the Rural Agricultural Development Authority because, in her view, it makes little sense to grow onions when the Government is not keeping its promise not to import onions.

“So dem give me the seed with one hand and take it back with the other hand so it doesn’t make sense,” Jones said.

After more than three decades in farming, Jones says the combination of high input costs, low farm-gate prices and competition from imports is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain.

“You find yourself doing more spending than earning,” she said.

She is now considering allowing her land leases to expire rather than taking on another season of losses.

“I don’t think I’m going to lease them back,” Jones said. “Because I can’t take the losses.”

For Jones, the debate over food prices needs to look beyond what consumers pay at the market.

Farmers, she argues, are also struggling to survive between the rising cost of producing food and the price they are actually paid for it.

“It’s physically hard and financially hard,” she said. “And on top of that, you’re not seeing the rewards.”

tanesha.mundle@gleanerjm.com