Fresh produce scarce at Coronation Market

Two days after Hurricane Melissa ripped through Jamaica, Kingston's Coronation Market, usually bursting with colour and noise, stood in quiet decay on Thursday.

The sharp, sour scent of rotting scallion hung heavy in the air, a reminder that the country's food lifeline had been cut. Thursday is normally market day, when trucks from St Elizabeth and Trelawny roll in before dawn, piled high with produce. But this time, the back section of the market, where the trucks would unload, was nearly deserted. Vans were parked off to the side, and vendors picked through soft, spoiled produce, trying to salvage what they could.

"Right now, a $15,000 fi one bag a onion wholesale price, and the regular price did a $8,000," said Nicola Reid, who has been selling at Coronation Market since she was a child. She was bent over 40 bags of red onions, peeling off the outer rot and dusting them clean for display.

"Me ago sell, man, 'cause the other one dem a sell fi $400, $350. Cause the storm mash up di thing and nuh ship nah come."

With the farm routes cut off, vendors will now rely on a handful of licensed wholesalers, the ones legally allowed to import produce. Reid said she bought her onions for $6,000 a bag from a Kingston Wharf supplier before the hurricane. By the next morning, the same stock had nearly doubled.

"When dem yah sell off, we affi sidung and wait fi ship come. We nah get nothing from St Elizabeth or Trelawny fi now," she told THE WEEKEND STAR.

Around her, heaps of scallion lay browned and shrivelled, giving off a pungent, stale odour that clung to clothes and crates. Vendors swept the spoiled stalks into piles and tried to make a last sale at $200 or $300 per pound.

"The people dem deh yah from Sunday night. A today dem clean up back di market, and a pure rotten scallion lef," Reid said. "Di country people dem weh come down before di storm, dem buy it and just a try fi sell back wah dem can. But a waste mostly."

With the roads in south and central parishes still blocked and farmlands under water, fresh supplies have ground to a halt.

"Based pan how di place deh now, a pure farrin load run," she said. "Big man dem weh have licence a bring it in from America and Canada. People nuh too like dat, but a weh we affi sell right now."

The price shocks ripple through everything. A bag of Irish potatoes that once sold for about $4,000 now goes for $7,500 wholesale. "Memba seh di grung mash up," Reid said. "Whole a dem something deh ago rotten."

A sudden stir broke the lull when Uonie, a farmer from Comma Pen, St Elizabeth, arrived with a van of fresh produce. Her district had escaped Melissa's worst, and within minutes, more than 20 shoppers crowded around her stall for pumpkin, callaloo, and tomato.

"Order, order! One-one!" she shouted, trying to keep order as hands reached out from all sides.

Alecia Roberts, delivery supervisor at the market, said this was the emptiest she had ever seen it.

"The last big delivery come a week before Melissa turn hurricane," she told THE WEEKEND STAR. "Normally, Thursday yah jam-packed wid yam trucks from Trelawny, but mi talk to one vendor up deh and she say everything wash out. Not even one truck come in."

Roberts said the shortage stretches beyond vendor stalls, as markets supply prison and hospital too.

"If dis continue, dem places ago feel it same way. We just haffi watch and see going into next week."

- A.L.