Dry weather costing Mahaicony Creek rice farmers extra

Rice farmers in the Mahaicony Creek say the prolonged dry weather has caused them to incur extra expense to pump water into their rice fields as they try desperately to save their crops.

The farmers said they would do all they can to get a good yield in order to recover the cost, recalling that during the recent flood they lost their entire crop and they cannot afford to let that happen again.

During a recent visit to Bara-Bara in the creek this newspaper observed that farmers were busy pumping water. One farmer, Mohamed Shamshudeen Khan said since the “water shortage” started at the beginning of the crop in December he has had to pump water every three weeks into his 100-acre of rice land.

Each time it takes him four nights and four days and about 60 gallons of diesel, amounting to over $40,000 to complete the task. In addition, Khan said he also has to find money to pay workers and for maintenance of his machinery.

He said, “The crop is at the flowering stage where it is critical for water but we are not getting the full flow because the water level in the trench is very low and everybody gat to pump. But sometimes farmers have to take turns to pump.”

Other farmers related that they cannot afford the high cost and are left at the mercy of the occasional rainfall. According to them once there is a “hard shower” the rice can be out of danger.

Chairman of the Mahaicony/Abary Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC), Bindrabhan Bisnauth assured that the situation is no longer serious because they have blocked the main drainage at Burma Road. He said this has helped to conserve the water so farmers can get enough to pump into their fields.

He related that during the high tide the Mahaica/Mahaicony/Abary (MMA) scheme pumps water from Mora Point and irrigates from the Hyde Park sluice.

This, he said, assists the farmers from Mora Point to Champagne, including farmers in small villages alongside the main drainage canal.

He said pumping water into their fields is not new to farmers since the area does not have gravity flow. Admitting that the prolonged dry season has compounded the problem since the “build up in the canal is not that good,” the chairman said this would not be corrected until the 2nd phase of the MMA scheme is completed.

“If farmers were planting village by village or through the block planting system the problem would not have been so great,” he explained. “And instead of them using 30 pumps at the same time only about six pumps would have been working and water would have been high in the systems.”

In the meantime, despite having to incur extra cost to pump water into their fields, farmers said they prefer the dry season rather than the flood because of the horrible experience they had endured.

Small farmer Devanand Mathura, 41, of Bara-Bara said he suffered tremendous losses during that time and did not have money to reinvest in this crop. He planted 30 acres of rice and did not get a pump in time to drain the water.

This, he said, caused the rice to be affected by Blast – a disease caused by too much heat – and “it refused to bear. Me had to spray with drugs after me ‘shy’ fertilizer to get rid of the Blast but the Blast still destroyed most of the rice.”

Mathura said he invested about $500,000 in the crop and was expecting to harvest about 900 bags of paddy. But he was only able to save a small portion of the crop and reaped about 100 bags and barely made $180,000.

He recalled that right after losing his crop during the last flood he lost two acres of cash crops.

He is not giving up though and plans that for the next crop he would invest in just 15 acres.

In the meantime he is continuing his small cash crop business and markets his produce on a wholesale basis to hucksters. He is also employed with other farmers while trying to raise the money to invest in the other crop.

Another farmer revealed that he had to hire two pumps and a tractor to pump the water out of his rice field. But like all the other farmers in the area he still lost the entire crop.

The farmer said he had invested about $3M in the crop and all he got was the $200,000 compensation from the government.

Meanwhile, residents are calling on government to install an electrical pump to provide more relief to the farmers, as some sections of the creek recently benefited from electricity.