Ben Harmon, the owner of the 2500-acre B.G. Harmon Farm, said on Tuesday that he expects to lose millions of dollars as a result of an outbreak of the deadly citrus canker plant disease, which has been discovered at his Marsh Harbour grove.
The discovery came four months after citrus canker was discovered at The Bahamas Star Grove in Treasure Cay, Abaco.
Mr. Harmon told The Bahama Journal that the presence of the virus on his farm has left him stunned.
“It is quite a blow,” he said. “A lot of investments, a lot of money has gone into the project and I have lost millions of dollars. My market was export to the United States and I don’t see the United States allowing me to bring fruits from Abaco back into the states.”
Mr. Harmon has owned the farm from 1985 and said it would be too much to start from scratch.
“It takes five to seven years before you start any production on the grove,” he said. “It is just a lot of money, too much time and then there is the canker disease hanging over your head. I don’t see myself in the citrus business any more. We have got a nursery-we have got the groves and all that is obviously going to be going away.”
Citrus canker is a bacterial disease that causes leaves and fruit to drop prematurely and could pose disastrous consequences for the crop in The Bahamas, which is said to be the third largest in CARICOM nations.
The infestation appears as brown, raised lesions surrounded by an oily, water-soaked margin and a yellow ring or halo appearing on leaves and fruit. Old lesions in leaves may fall out, creating a shot-hole effect, according to agriculture experts.
Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries V. Alfred Gray told The Bahama Journal that the same procedures being used to rid The Bahamas Star Grove of citrus canker will be used to address the situation at Harmon Farm.
The trees will be uprooted, dried and then burned, Minister Gray said.
“I traveled to Abaco on Friday to examine the farm and to make whatever arrangements I needed to for the containment and the security of the farm while we seek to get bids for the destruction of the trees,” he said.
In February, the government awarded a $720, 000 contract for the destruction of The Bahamas Star Grove to a local Abaco heavy equipment company, Big Cat Bahamas, after the original owners allegedly abandoned the farm.
While other residents on Abaco fear the spread of the crop disease to residential trees, government officials say they are continuing to work to prevent the spread of the disease.
Mr. Harmon said that he did not discover the canker at his farm.
“The Director of Agriculture and his people were the ones who last week discovered it,” he said. “They were doing the inspections for quite some time.”
From The Bahama Journal
