Re­cent flood­ing across the coun­try has de­stroyed crops and led to a sharp in­crease in the price of veg­eta­bles and oth­er pro­duce at the mar­ket.

The whole­sale price of toma­toes in­creased by 266 per cent, cau­li­flower by 108 per cent, and let­tuce by 33.3, forc­ing re­tail prices up.

And now, some cus­tomers who are un­able to cope with the "ex­po­nen­tial rate" at which prices are ris­ing have been walk­ing away or buy­ing less.

Agri­cul­ture con­sul­tant Riyadh Mo­hammed, speak­ing about the rate at which prices are ris­ing, told the Sun­day Guardian last week that a lot more dam­age has been done to farm­ers' crops in 2022 due to ex­cess floods. 

He said crops were de­stroyed by flood­wa­ters in the Or­ange Grove and Plum Mi­tan ar­eas.

In Or­ange Grove, crops in­clude toma­toes and sweet pep­pers, while in the Plum Mi­tan Food Crop Project the crops af­fect­ed were cu­cum­bers, me­l­on­gene and ochroes.

Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan con­firmed last week that the coun­try was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing around 180 per cent more rain­fall than usu­al, and the low-ly­ing ar­eas usu­al­ly im­pact­ed dur­ing heavy rain­fall have been hard­est hit.

Ac­cord­ing to Mo­hammed, "One of the ma­jor fac­tors that have led to the in­crease in prices is not on­ly the in­creas­ing in­puts of sup­plies to agri­cul­ture but the loss of food. "Scarci­ty plays a heavy role." He said there are few­er vol­umes of food to sell, and by the laws of sup­ply and de­mand, "the lit­tle food that there is to sell, the prices have au­to­mat­i­cal­ly gone up in the mar­ket space."

How­ev­er, "dur­ing the dry sea­son, once farm­ers have ac­cess to wa­ter, food is cheap and af­ford­able for the con­sumers."

Mo­hammed said while the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries com­pen­sates farm­ers for flood claims, the prob­lem is that this is on­ly for reg­is­tered farm­ers.

"There are many un­reg­is­tered farm­ers in the coun­try, maybe about 80 per cent are un­reg­is­tered. They don’t have the prop­er land tenure doc­u­men­ta­tion. So, they can­not ac­cess any of the sub­si­dies pro­vid­ed by the min­istry as they don’t have their farmer's card or badge."

He said prices are sta­bilised when lo­cal farm­ers re­plant, but it takes two or three months for those crops to get back to the mar­ket. Then the prices will sta­bilise once the sup­ply is con­sis­tent.

"What we are see­ing now is that the im­porters have now charged the way for­ward such as im­port­ing pro­duce like toma­toes and cau­li­flower to fill that gap." As a re­sult, the price of im­port­ed pro­duce is of­ten much low­er than the price of lo­cal­ly pro­duced veg­eta­bles.

"An ex­am­ple is im­port­ed green cab­bage, which sells at $10 per pound. Gin­ger sells for $15 per pound. Now be­cause that it is im­port­ed, gin­ger sells at $6 to $8 a pound whole­sale."

He gave be­fore and af­ter ex­am­ples of whole­sale price in­creas­es:

*Sweet pep­pers were $8/lb whole­sale. Now it sells for $16/lb.

*Toma­toes were $6 to $8/lb whole­sale. Now it sells for $22/lb.

*Cau­li­flower was $12 to$14/lb whole­sale. Now it sells for $20 to $25/lb.

*Cab­bage was $6 to $8/lb. Now it sells for $12/lb

Let­tuce was $6 per head whole­sale. Now it sells for $10 to $12 per head.

Vendor Sinanan Harridan arranges tomatoes for sale at the Central Market in Port-of-Spain.

ANISTO ALVES

Port-of-Spain ven­dors

Asha Jagges­sar, who sells cas­sa­va and oth­er pro­vi­sions at the Port-of-Spain mar­ket, said that when floods af­fect farm­ers, it is dif­fi­cult to get pro­duce to ven­dors who sell at the mar­kets, and so this push­es prices up.

"There are farm­ers who are high­er up and fur­ther away from the flood, and they have to take an­i­mals with carts to go deep in the bush­es and so we ven­dors have to pay more. 

"The im­port­ed veg­eta­bles from the is­lands are gen­er­al­ly cheap­er than lo­cal pro­duce."

But now, she ad­mit­ted, cus­tomers are feel­ing the brunt of the price in­creas­es, and some are now "walk­ing away" rather than buy­ing pro­duce at the mar­ket.

"From what I see, it is on­ly those who re­al­ly need it that are buy­ing it. Some of the stuff is still sell­ing but it is sell­ing slow­er."

Patrice Fer­rette, an­oth­er ven­dor who sells toma­toes, pep­pers and chives, said be­cause of the price in­creas­es caused by the floods she has suf­fered loss­es fi­nan­cial­ly.

"For the last few days, the price of pro­duce has gone up. The farm­ers who would usu­al­ly bring the stuff, some of them couldn’t come be­cause they got flood­ed. So, the one or two who came had a few prod­ucts and raised the prices high."

She com­plained that many cus­tomers are up­set be­cause of the fre­quent rise in prices and they are not buy­ing.

"Busi­ness is re­al­ly slow. The mon­ey I in­vest­ed, I am not mak­ing it back. I in­vest­ed $4,000 last two weeks and I on­ly made back $2,000. I in­vest­ed $4,000 in pi­men­toes, hot pep­pers, and toma­toes among oth­er things. The prob­lem is peo­ple are not buy­ing be­cause of the high prices and they are melt­ing and get­ting spoilt. Who will pay more than $20 a pound for toma­toes?" she asked.

Sinanan Har­ri­dan, who sells or­anges and cab­bages at the Port-of-Spain mar­ket, said that scarci­ty caus­es prices to sky­rock­et.

"It doesn’t have goods in the mar­ket af­ter it floods. Then prices rise. I go to Ma­coya and buy and sell here. Some things are more ex­pen­sive, but some peo­ple still buy as they have no choice."

Berty Green, who sells or­anges and por­tu­gals among oth­er fruits, said that the prices of these items re­main fair­ly con­stant de­spite the floods.

"It could be that the farm­ers who are sell­ing the cit­rus are more con­sid­er­ate and more flex­i­ble. There isn’t a short­age of or­anges re­al­ly and most of the por­tu­gals are full and ready for eat­ing. Prices rise when there is a short­age of prod­ucts. 

"How­ev­er, you are see­ing a rise in veg­etable prices."

He lament­ed that busi­ness is slow­er be­cause peo­ple are not buy­ing as much as be­fore.

"They come and see some prices and say they don’t have mon­ey. Some peo­ple are cry­ing. Oth­ers are more se­lec­tive in their buy­ing."

A customer selects provision at the Central Market in Port-of Spain.

ANISTO ALVES

These are price changes over the last two weeks based on in­ter­views with ven­dors:

*Cas­sa­va was $1/lb. Now sells at $4 or $5/lb.

*Toma­toes were $15 /lb. Now they sell for $22/lb.

*Hot pep­pers were $5 for sev­en. Now they sell for $5 for 3.

*Limes were $10 for 10. Now they sell for $10 for four.

*Onions were $2/lb. Now it sells for $3/lb.

*Cu­cum­ber was 8/lb. Now it sells for $10/lb.

*Or­anges are $10 for 4. The price re­mains the same.

*Por­tu­gals are 10 for $10. The prices re­main the same.

_Re­port­ing by Raphael John-Lall