Dear Editor,

The present crop of rice has been seriously affected by salt which came in from the irrigation water taken directly from rivers in Region 2.The areas mainly affected are Spring Garden, Maria’s Delight, Bush Lot and other parts. Farmers had no other alternative to save their crops, but it was advisable that any farmer who anticipated pumping water into their fields, should have had the water tested. The  rice plant is particularly susceptible to salt at all stages, and at the flowering and grain filling stage, yield will be lower, the proportion of unfilled grains will be higher and chalkiness will increase.

Of the 32,500 acres which have been sown many acres will be lost because of lack of irrigation water and the slow funding for the purchase of fuel for the Dawa Pumping Station so water can be stored in the main canal. No emergency measures to alleviate the irrigation problem were put in place before the El Nino weather phenomenon took its toll for the second time on Guyana’s rice industry. This will result in the loss of export earnings and a short supply for the domestic market.

The Guyana government should now provide assistance to those farmers who cultivated their crops and lost them because of a lack of irrigation water.

The supply of irrigation water in this region has never been under a schedule to farmers served by the conservancy, causing many problems of gravity feed  for the higher lands within the Tapakuma Irrigation Scheme. The major schemes like Mahaica/Mahaicony/ Abary, Tapakuma and Black Bush were all designed to irrigate the higher rice lands first.

Yours faithfully,
Mohamed Khan