Dominica: Agriculture Minister Jullan Defoe highlights challenges to Fisheries industry

Roseau, Dominica: The State Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries of the Commonwealth of Dominica, Jullan Defoe, in his latest interview, put forth the challenges faced by the fisheries industry of the country, with a focus on the adverse effects that hurricanes, as well as the climate change, inflict upon the industry.

As the Agriculture Minister Jullan Defoe noted, “With climate change, we expect storms to be more frequent. , we expect them to be stronger. and even outside of storms, we have swells. We have our, usual swells, between the winter season in North America, and sometimes you, these are not hurricanes, but they do have significant impacts on the coastlines and even the assets of fisheries, which is usually beyond our control.”

The Agriculture Minister also discussed the problems in the implementation of the mitigation measures for the industry to get back on track of progress. He added: “The construction of modern facilities such as brick waters, be it, using rocks, large rocks to form groins or be it concrete structures, but any interventions in, in this marine environment to what protection of, of fish land insights, fisher’s infrastructure are usually very, difficult and expensive to implement, and sometimes even so technically.”

Another challenge to the fisheries industry is the inefficiencies in marketing. According to the Agriculture Minister, Hurricane Maria destroyed the Ruso Fisher, which sort of crippled the market. 

 Additionally, the poor harvest handling techniques prove another challenge, about which Defoe stated:

“We have had significant setbacks, and we do have other issues, such as improving the post-harvest handling, so these are technical things that we have. We can address food training, and we have done tremendous work and will continue to do so. And certain key services and amenities across landing sites, such as the availability of ice are, is one of the most critical things.”