Frustrated members of the Bodles Farmers Association are appealing to Agriculture Minister Roger Clarke to intervene and get the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) to repair a tractor which has been down with mechanical problems since last year October.

President, Johnny Brown, told THE STAR that since that time, production efforts of the 38 men and women of the St Catherine association have been restricted by the high cost - ranging between $18,000 and $21,000 - charged by private tractor operators, This compares to the $14,000 per acre, which the farmers usually pay to RADA under its tractor rental scheme.

The farmers, who control a 59-acre block of land, say that reeling from the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy, they are unable to meet this prohibitive cost and so have been set back in their efforts to get on with food production.

Brown says they were informed that the clutch in the tractor went bad, and since then, efforts to get RADA to provide a replacement or say when it will be repaired have been to no avail.

THE STAR was informed that replacing the clutch would cost in excess of $300,000. That is money the agency cannot source at this time.

Unable to get a response from the local office, the president says he wrote to Clarke and took the letter to the Hope Road office, where he was advised that the minister was off the island. Having left a contact number, he was expecting to hear from Clarke, but this has not happened.

"In the letter, I say loan us the tractor and we would get it up and running by the end of June so we could get more land ploughed and planted before the rain," he disclosed. "Up to now, I haven't heard any response from them."

The decision to appeal to Clarke came in the wake of ongoing dialogue with RADA representatives at the local level, which have yielded very little results, Brown explained.

"The parish manager, Victor Edwards, is a man can reason with but I can see that both his hands and feet seem to be tied. Him want fi do, but him can't do because those above him have the last word.

"We have an extension officer, Mr Brown. Him can't do nutten either. When you call him and look and all him can say is 'Bwoy, nutten naw gwaan. Him can do nothing, Mr Edwards is a good man, Mr. Brown willing, but them of themselves can't do anything."

Declaring the intent of his members to get on with the job of food production to help in the country's economic development, Brown lamented the irony of being constrained by the ineffectiveness of a state agency, which is supposed to be helping farmers.

He asked: "How can agriculture boost the economy and provide the help the country needs to go forward when we don't have proper equipment to help us? If you look around, a pure bush we have because we can't get fi plough the land."