Nana Decimates Crops in Toledo District

As we said, the agricultural sector has been the most impacted. The banana industry, which is the mainstay in the south, is said to have suffered millions of dollars in damages.  And a full assessment will be known in the days ahead.  The ravages of Nana in southern Belize are also being felt all the way in Dolores, a remote Maya community in Toledo District, where farmers have lost crops as a result of the overnight storm.  This morning, around five o’clock, cornfields were flattened as Nana made her way through the village.  Acres of agricultural plants have also been destroyed by the hurricane and farmers in that rural location are still assessing their losses.  The chairman of Dolores has shared with us a brief video clip showing the extent of damages to crops in that village.

Voice of: Julian Pop, Chairman, Dolores

“Good morning everyone from Belize, we are here in the Toledo District from Dolores.  I am the chairman and then there is the alcalde, second alcalde and then there are village members here at Mr. Pedro Cucul’s plantation farm which is where a storm started earlier this morning about five a.m. and it caused a lot of damage to these farms.  And it’s not only him that has been facing these damages, it’s a lot [of farmers] the majority and the entire Dolores members.  So Mr. Pedro Cucul is one of the previous chairmen as well and this is where he does his farm but as you can see right now, this storm has created a lot of damage to the corn plantation and it’s really hard, sad to see what has been happening here since early this morning because this is where we get our food and this is what we depend on to do our living.  But right now, as you can see the damage, we cannot do anything about it, it’s still young and so it’s very hard to see and very sad to see what has been happening.  This is our first visit at our first, one of our members but we are going to visit a couple other farmers so that we can have all the look at all the different damages that we have been seeing.”