The once thriving Buxton Market persists through episodes of community stigmatization and tragedy which the proud and prominent East Coast Demerara village has had to endure. Unsurprisingly, the economy of Buxton has suffered too. The Market is no longer the centre of trade that it once was.
It has become a ghostly space, its empty stalls serving as little more than reminders of better days, sentinels to a more prosperous time. But the Backdam, says Buxtonian Leroy Hamer, still thrives; it is still fertile land.
“We have good land here. Just give us a market and we will produce,” Hamer says. He says the community’s farmers are “holding back,” waiting for a suitable place to market their produce.
Hamer is one of three farmers whom Stabroek Business engaged recently and who talked about the trials facing the East Coast farming community. The challenges, he believes, derives from lack of opportunity rather than lack of effort.
Another farmer from the community, Ronald Roberts, told this newspaper that currently, the main outlets for Buxton’s farm produce are the vendors in the Bourda Market.
“It’s more convenient for us because if we had to sell ourselves we’d have to spend all day and even overnight in the market. You can’t farm if you selling so right now we does wholesale to the vendors there but when sales bad they can’t take you produce and you are left with it,” Roberts explained.
The farmers, however, say they are looking ahead to the realization of the various public pronouncements by President David Granger regarding the importance of reviving the village economy. “Strong village economies,” the President said at an August 2015 forum on the state of the
