Costa Maya, Q.R. — After tours of 18 communities, Costa maya farmers estimate around 3,500 hectares of crops have been damaged due to torrential rain. Ramón Razo Trigueros, President of the Association of Southern Ejidos of Quintana Roo, says those figures are likely to increase since they have not been able to tour all areas.
“This is the number of hectares that are in water as a result of the rains, but it could be more, we are talking about up to 4,000,” he said.
“What happened is that we have not been able to reach all the communities because there is no access. Some of the harvesting roads are impossible to use and there are some landslides on other roads, so we have to wait for the water to go down to reach all the plots and corroborate the damage to be able to calculate the economic losses in the production, especially of corn and sugar cane,” he explained.
He says many areas of Othón P. Blanco are still waterlogged, and in some cases, not accessible due to the recent torrential rain. To date, the 18 communities they were able to tour saw damaged corn and sugarcane crops.
Razo Trigueros says the damage is from water runoff from surrounding rivers including the Hondo.
The towns of Carlos A. Madrazo, Sac-Xán, Ramonal, El Palmar, Allende, Sabidos, Álvaro Obregón, Cacao, Pucté, Cocoyol, Tres Garanrías, La Libertad, Francisco Villa, Revolución, Sergio Butrón, among others, have reported damaged crops as well as homes.
Razo Trigueros says the worst part is over, so now they can begin damage control by supporting the affected farmers since many of these people rely on crops for income. Damaged roads will also need to be repaired to ensure products that are harvested can be transported to market.
“Some repairs have been made, but they do not last especially with the rains like the ones we had, the roads become impassable,” he said adding that farmers are still hopeful.
