Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Floyd Green has de­scribed the dam­age to the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor as “cat­a­stroph­ic” not­ing that it has de­liv­ered a crip­pling blow to farm­ers, fish­ers and rur­al com­mu­ni­ties whose liveli­hoods are now at ex­treme risk.

In a state­ment on Thurs­day, Green al­so made a pre­lim­i­nary es­ti­mate of dam­age due to Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa, ex­ceed­ing J$20 bil­lion.

He added that tech­nocrats with­in the min­istry point­ed out that fi­nal fig­ures are ex­pect­ed to rise as sev­er­al se­vere­ly im­pact­ed ar­eas re­main in­ac­ces­si­ble.