N.S. farmer travels to Jamaica to help farmers recover from Hurricane Melissa | CBC News
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A Nova Scotia farmer has delivered much-needed supplies to help some of his counterparts in Jamaica recover from the devastating impacts of Hurricane Melissa.
Josh Oulton, from Taproot Farms in Port Williams, N.S., travelled to the Caribbean island country in early March with $11,000 raised by Rotary clubs in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to buy yam heads and fertilizer so farmers could regenerate yam fields destroyed in the storm.
Yam heads are the top part of a yam tuber used as planting material. The vegetable is a major staple in Jamaica, which is also one of the world’s largest yam exporters.
“So they had nothing and oftentimes that is all they have — these yam farmers — and so now they have to start over and they don’t have any income for this year,” Oulton said.
Melissa, which tore through Jamaica last October, was the most powerful hurricane on record to hit the country, causing an estimated $10 billion in destruction.
The Category 5 hurricane, which made landfall on Oct. 28, killed at least 45 people and displaced 30,000 households.
Oulton and his daughter Lily, who is 20, visited farmers in some of the hardest-hit areas.
They were able to buy and distribute about 900 kilograms of yam heads and about $3,000 worth of fertilizer, helping about 20 farmers, he said.
“They’re very appreciative. So that felt good.”
Among the people they visited were some who have worked as seasonal employees at Taproot over a number of years, including Kensley Richards.
Richards’s home community of Manchester in west-central Jamaica suffered major damage.
Farmers there are working to get their operations back on track.
“Probably six farmers in his community alone lost their house, lost their yams. They’re living in their tool shed. It’s pretty desperate,” Oulton said. “They still don’t have power but now they have yam heads and fertilizers, so that’s one little hand up.”
Richards has been working seasonally in Nova Scotia since 2008.
His property in Jamaica suffered damage and he said the yam heads and fertilizer are a blessing.
“You don’t know what you do for me as a small farmer. That is the greatest gift ever he showed,” Richards said. “Thank you for the program and thanks for everything, because it’s not me alone and it goes far away and everybody is happy.”
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