Taiwan’s Ambassador joins fight against banana disease

Taiwanese Ambassador, His Excellency Jack Yui-Tai Cheng, last Friday, handed over a cheque of EC $4 million to Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves to aid in the control and eradication of the Moko Disease.{{more}}

The cheque was presented at a special ceremony held at Jar Plum Enterprise, Richland Park.

The Moko disease was discovered in this country two weeks ago and so far 103 persons are said to have been affected with the damage spreading to 200 acres of land.

Moko is one of the most serious diseases of bananas and plantains.

Of the 4 million, $500,000 will be used for quality control and eradication, 1.6 million for compensation to affected farmers and 1.8 million for replanting.

Making remarks Minister of Agriculture, Montgomery Daniel said on June 4, his Ministry announced that the disease was present in this country.

He added that since then, a programme to control and eradicate the disease was launched.

Minister Daniel said five teams were working with affected farmers and by next week this number would be increased to eight more in the coming weeks.

He appealed to farmers and the general public to support the Ministry in its effort to fight the disease. Daniel said it had been reported to the Ministry that some individuals were removing bunches from infected fields and taking them to nearby markets or the Central market in Kingstown for sale. “This must stop,” he said.

He reassured the farmers that there was still a market for clean bananas. Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves in his feature address said the response to the Moko disease was a national one. He said he would ensure that affected farmers were compensated for their farms so that they would not be in a disadvantaged position because of the disease.

“I am not going to be stingy,” he told the farmers.

He said if the eradication programme required more than the $4 million donated the government of Taiwan, Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines would provide more.

He said the government was waging a war on the disease and that it would be defeated.

He also announced that he was at present studying a draft that would deal with praedial larceny (theft).

Parliamentary Representative for Marriaqua and former Minister of Agriculture Girlyn Miguel also addressed the ceremony along with Acting Chief Agricultural Officer Reuben Robertson and Chairman of the Banana Action Committee Cecil Ryan.

Following the ceremony, PM Gonsalves was taken to a nearby field where he was given a demonstration by one of the teams working with affected farmers.

Some of the measures used to control the disease are injecting individual plants by using round up or touch down, creating a buffer zone about 15 feet around affected plants, spraying weeds within area.