Across Barbados, agricultural extension specialists are sounding the alarm over rising fungal infection rates in popular cucurbit crops, including pumpkins, squash and watermelons, linking the growing risk to longstanding gaps in sustainable planting practices among local producers. Two of the island’s leading agricultural bodies, the Barbados Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (BADMC) and the Barbados Agricultural Society (BAS), have outlined the interconnected structural and practice-based barriers that leave vulnerable crops exposed to persistent soil-borne pathogens.