IICA to make common cause with the Caribbean in the wake of Hurricane Tomas

San José, Costa Rica, November 4, 2010 (IICA). The priority actions to be taken by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) on the islands of St. Lucia and St. Vincent, those most affected by the hurricane, will be to secure access to drinking water and food, provide support to the ministry of agriculture and help rebuild the agricultural sector. The Dominican Republic, Barbados and Haiti, also IICA Member States, were also hit by the storm.

According to Una May Gordon, IICA Representative for the Eastern Caribbean States, the strong winds, accompanied by heavy rainfall, destroyed all crops and interrupted the supply of potable water and the food distribution system.

Gordon, attending a meeting at IICA Headquarters, said “Only 5% of the banana crop can be saved. A preliminary assessment in St. Lucia and St. Vincent points to damages totaling US$25 million.”

IICA Director General Victor M. Villalobos stated that the Institute’s response to the emergency will be to put its most valuable resource, its technical cooperation, at the service of the affected islands.

Short-term actions to be taken by the Institute include contact the ministers of agriculture of the Caribbean immediately to offer support and map out joint actions. In addition, he urged all IICA personnel to donate funds to purchase food and water as a show of solidarity with their co-workers in St. Lucia and St. Vincent.

In the medium term, the Institute will support the committees assessing damages in the countries. Once they have been quantified, it will be much easier to plan actions.

The Institute will also on take longer term actions related to risk management and increasing access to and expanding the coverage of agricultural insurance in the Caribbean.

Gordon explained that Hurricane Tomas changed from a tropical storm to a category 1 hurricane in less than five hours, which made preventive action impossible and resulted in greater damage. Landslides have cut off a large number of communities and forced the airports on both islands to close.

For more information, contact 
victor.delangel@iica.int