Mahaicony: Although the results of recent rainfalls have not been kind to many farmers, there are those who are of the belief that not enough is being done to appease the plight of some affected farmers. At least this is the view of a few farmers who hail from the Pine Ground Mahaicony Creek area who recently traveled all the way to Georgetown to air their concerns through the media.
Though faced with the fear that they could be victimized, the farmers, are convinced that speaking out rather than keeping silent is the only avenue to putting an end to a dilemma which not only threatens their livelihood but their families’ very existence as well. Among the disgruntled farmers are Narinedat who has been farming and rearing cattle for more than two decades. The elderly man said that over the past year farmers in the Mahaicony area have suffered great loss due to the high levels of the East Demerara Conservancy.
The move by the Ministry of Agriculture earlier this year to release the excesses of the Conservancy through the Maduni Sluice was touted as a strategic move to minimize the effects of heavy rainfalls thereby safeguarding the rest of the country. But according to farmer, Narinedat, farmers of the Pine Ground area, who are usually most affected when the water is released, have time and again “asked the Government for better assistance. We have told them that the assistance that they are giving us can’t work.” Assistance forthcoming from the Government to the farmers after their previous crop was affected was 10 bags of fertilizers and 20 bags of paddy, according to Narinedat who noted that the support is not even a fraction of what is lost annually due to the flooding situation. “We lose millions of dollars and what they are giving us can’t in any way compensate; every year is the same thing…”
Aside from better assistance after the loss of their crop, they have on numerous occasions requested that the Ministry furnish them with an excavator in order to build dams suitable enough to prevent the repeated scenario. “What we find is if you got money you does get the help but if you nah got money you can’t get it. That is what is happening to us right now,” he lamented.
He expressed dissatisfaction too that “for the whole season we ain’t even see the Minister or nobody…them ain’t coming to see wah happening to we in Pine Ground. Wah happen to the farmers them in the creek? We went many times to see the Minister (Leslie Ramsammy) and can’t see he so we had to go to the President to air our complaints then them send us back to see the Minister and nothing.”
Another farmer, Hardat Mangal, disclosed his belief that “the poor will keep punishing,” even as he revealed that the compensation has barely increased when compared to over the past few years. “Years gone by they use to give you five bags paddy and that’s all, last year them increase lil, but I does ask them how we can really start back with that. That is not all that we does use; you talking about fuel and labour costs, plus insecticides and if they will keep doing this all the time how will we survive?”
According to Mangal “when is flood time they does come up and down but don’t wait to see what happening to we…How they gonna see what going on? They have to come every day then (before) they make a move.” He explained that when the land becomes excessively inundated several calls are made to Senior Executive Officer at the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority, Lionel Worthsworth, to no avail. “We does call about 100 times for him to send an excavator to help us because he knows the Creek prone to flooding, especially in Pine Ground, and nothing happens and we end up losing everything and they know this is our only source of income.”
According to the farmers, among them Harinarine Mangal and Nowcharine Parboo, their crops for this year should have been ready for harvesting in April but instead “we have lost everything.” They estimate that their individual losses are in excess of $3.5 million in rice alone, a state of affairs which has left the farmers wondering how they will survive for the remainder of the year. “They always promising we to compensate us but they can’t compensate us …What we do is what we dependent on to live…if you make some profit you can live on that but when you lose everything what are we going to live on?
We don’t have any income…we pour all our money into our crop…last year was the same thing,” the farmers lamented.
The solution
It is the view of the farmers that no longer can visits from so-called technical experts improve their current existence. They are adamant that only through closer monitoring of the conservancy before and during the rainfalls coupled with intervening measures that things can noticeably improve. “Every time the rain fall they say them sending technical staff and this is not making any sense because is the same thing every year…the whole thing just deteriorating…and we ain’t deh no better than the year before.”
The farmers are confident that they are the better persons to advise the Ministry on how to address their existing plight even as they pointed out that the current actions being directed to them merely suggest that “they don’t care about what happens to us. They come and do what they do and then they gone; at the end of the day they are getting their salaries so they don’t care…when they done they done.”
By vocalizing their concerns in the media the farmers are hopeful that the Government’s eyes will be opened. “Even if it means flooding we out they have to do better and prepare better compensations for us and stop promising,” the farmers asserted.
