Dear Editor,

Of recent there has been much talk of the land laser-levelling equipment which was purchased by the government. On evaluation of the comments, one concludes that besides trying to lambaste the government on the purchase of this equipment the technology itself has been criticized.

Lambasting the government is total politics, and one should not mix this with the technology of land-levelling.  Land-levelling is very important for a proper seed bed (paddy field) in order to increase yield and quality. The phenomenon that arises in an uneven field is that there will be areas not exposed to the water supply which results in plants of stunted growth and the presence of weeds, among other things.

This in turn leads to the presence of paddy bugs resulting in damaged grains which affects quality. Stunted growth leads to immature grain that affects quality also. The lower areas result in a lower plant population which causes the emergence of duckweed and a lower yield. We are all aware of the phenomenon of farmers complaining of getting different grades from the same field – the result of an unlevel field. In many instances the small farmers show up the bigger farmers because of their ability to more easily move soil around to level their fields than is possible for a big farmer without equipment, thereby resulting in higher yields.

If a proper investigation were done into the availability of land laser-levelling equipment one would find that same was or is available at the MMA’s office at Onverwagt.

The destruction of hardware like the land plane and earth-moving buckets is quite visible in that compound. When MMA was approached for this same equipment by CRA some time ago when they had the mandate of increasing yield by using land laser-levelling equipment free of charge for farmers, we were told in no uncertain terms that the same had to be paid for as this was shown as an asset in MMA accounts.

We were told also that the software would be sold to GuySuCo for the Skeldon development.

Obviously this equipment is lying idle somewhere in GuySuCo stores. So a case can be easily made that the equipment that is available in the system should not have been bought, rather than criticizing the technology of levelling land by utilising laser technology.

Yours faithfully,
Beni Sankar