BRIDGETOWN EARLY SATURDAY MORNING: see the men and women calling and some complaining.
People in the markets were sour about prices in general, but the biggest lament was about sweet potatoes which, according to shoppers, have jumped significantly in price in the past month.
Vice-president of the Barbados Association of Retailers, Vendors and Entrepreneurs (BARVEN) Erskine Forde told the SUNDAY SUN there were good prices in the market, but sweet potatoes would be on the high end for another couple of weeks.
His sentiments were echoed by vendor David Brathwaite, who said the price of a number of other vegetables had dropped in recent weeks. These included cucumbers, squash and cabbage.
“The rain fall, so [in] the next couple of months potatoes will be cheap,” he predicted.
However, Brathwaite expects yam prices to go up soon.
One of his counterparts in the Palmetto Square Vendors’ Mall said they bought potatoes from the plantations by the bag at $2.75 per pound.
She said they were seldom allowed to dig and when they were, they had to buy at $30 per rod, which produced under ten pounds each.
“However yuh turn round, yuh lossing,” she quipped.
Even though the profit was small, and there was a cost for bags, she said she put up with it in order to keep the customers.
“Sweetheart, it hard. We never had it suh hard in Barbados . . . . The Government mekking we s . . . !” she said.
Noting that sales had dropped because of increased prices, a youngster in Palmetto Square said there was a correlation between the decline in sales and the change to the drug formulary, charging this further reduced the spending capacity of the elderly, in particular.
He said people were now forced to use the money they spent on vegetables to pay for medication.
A vendor, who gave his name as Simeon, said sweet potatoes had risen to as high as $4.50 per pound in recent weeks.
He added that other vegetables were in greater supply and those prices had dropped.
“It balance out itself as far as I’m concerned,” he said, adding that the hard-core sweet potato-lovers and vegetarians were still buying.
He said he was not complaining about the various price fluctuations.
“Yuh got to take the bitter with the sweet,” Simeon said.
He also encouraged people to make use of the space around their homes to plant some of the things they needed. Simeon said he had no fear that vendors would lose business, if people planted their own food.
“They can’t plant enough to flood the market, they can help with the market,” he stressed.
One shopper in the BARVEN facility at Cheapside said he did not like the “supply and demand t’ing”.
“It’s always unfair to people who have to buy, because if the quantity is small you have to pay a lot more. I don’t like that,” he commented.
He was not excited about the current $3 going rate for sweet potatoes, saying he preferred $1.50 or $1.75. Acknowledging that prices were generally dependent on the cost to the producer, he said people had to get back to their kitchen gardens.
“People who have got a small spot have got to get down to the business of planting for themselves. And that is where I fall down a lot, because I can’t get the time right now,” he admitted, adding that he spent about $30 a week at the market.
Jason Greene was also out shopping yesterday morning. He said he spends between $50 and $60 when he goes to the market, and that he was getting less for his dollar in recent times.
A woman who shops for a family of five said she spends more than $100 per week on provisions and vegetables, but is taking home less.
She said shoppers were getting “less vegetables and (spending) more money”, stating that she bought sweet potatoes at $1 a pound last month.