Sweet potato’s bitter battle
Pests, hurricanes undercut promise of premium crop
Published:Sunday | January 18, 2026 | 12:09 AM
The sweet potato, long designated a “good carbohydrate”, commands premium prices on the local market and carries major value-added potential, from flour and chips for the fast-food industry to salads, soups, and crushed meals for the young and elderly. But for farmers on the ground, that promise is being undercut by pests, hurricanes, and mounting losses.
Farmer Michael McDonald is one of them.
When The Sunday Gleaner visited recently, he was battling invading overgrowth that was choking his sweet and hot pepper fields.
Just metres away, his half-acre of sweet potato crop was rotting in the soil, destroyed by Cylas formicarius – the notorious sweet potato weevil, commonly called ‘bwoga’ or ‘blue fly’.
McDonald, who lost most of his production to the pest, was not in a talkative mood. The weevil attacks crops over several months, and if unchecked, can wipe out an entire field.
The sweet potato weevil is considered a major global threat to the crop. Farmers are advised to reap immediately after maturity and to avoid or minimise cracks in the soil, which allow the pest to penetrate.
Manchester farmer Stanley Broomfield explained how devastating the pest can be.
“It’s a pest that infests the potatoes during a period of 35 to 50 days, depending on the time of the year, and mostly affects the mature crops. When it is young, because of the level of enzymes in the tuber, it is unwelcome to the pest. The more mature the crops become, the more susceptible it becomes to the pest,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.
Broomfield said the risk increases during warmer, wetter periods.
Most damage is done
“The adult lays the eggs on the leaves, and they hatch into larvae. This goes into the soil and penetrates the potatoes, which is the stage at which most damage is done. They then metamorphose into the pupal stage, where they go into sleep and create more adults for more damage,” Broomfield, an agricultural science teacher, explained.
Heavy infestation can lead to losses upwards of 90 per cent as the weevil spends its entire life cycle on the host plant. Locally, farmers report losses as high as 60 per cent of harvested sweet potatoes, according to the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI).
He noted that damage can be reduced without chemicals through integrated pest management, including field sanitisation to remove old potato vines that harbour pests and crop rotation.
“Reap sweet potatoes, and plant carrots to avoid infestation and loss. As a last resort, use chemicals, but most farmers use chemicals from the get-go. It is the most dangerous but most effective,” he said.
Compounding the pest problem are extreme weather events. The Sunday Gleaner observed a farm with more than three acres under dasheen, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, and plantains that was completely destroyed by Hurricane Beryl in July 2024.
Key export crop
Despite these challenges, sweet potato remains a key export crop. Jamaica is a significant exporter, mainly to Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Cayman Islands, markets with large Jamaican and Caribbean populations. In 2024, the country earned about US$3 million from exporting 995,000 kilograms even as it continued to import the tuber.
Sweet potato is also widely used in African diets, underscoring its global demand.
Last year, the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture launched the ‘Next Generation Sweet Potato Production in the Caribbean’ project aimed at providing farmers with clean planting material to boost yields. The four-year initiative, launched in February, involves Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda, and St Lucia, in partnership with the CARDI. The Food and Agriculture Organization committed US$596,000 to the project.
At the launch, Agriculture Minister Floyd Green said sweet potato’s versatility makes it a regional staple and a critical component of food security. He highlighted its potential for flour production as an import substitute for wheat and its possible use in animal feed. The current status of the project, however, is unclear.
Major local production occurs in Manchester, St Elizabeth, Clarendon, and St Ann – all four sustaining varying levels of damage from Hurricane Melissa.
Broomfield expects the impact to be felt at the market.
“Under normal circumstances, it carries a good price, but after the hurricane, it will become short [in supply], and that will drive up the price,” he said, citing the law of supply and demand.