Residents of Lighttown Village, East Bank Berbice are peeved over the unnecessary loss of their cash crops, as a result of a recently built dam along the riverside in the agricultural community.
The earthen dam, which was built over three months ago, through a Ministry of Public Infrastructure initiative, is aimed at preventing the river water from flowing on to the land. However, provision was not made for an outlet, which would allow rain water to flow off the land, and as a result, there has been flooding and loss of crops, during the recent unexpected rainfall.
Jagessar Seeram, a green vegetable farmer for over 30 years, took local reporters to his farm where he was forced to reap, prematurely, pumpkins that needed another three weeks.
Because of the recent heavy rainfall over the last two weeks, 300 pounds of the crop were lost, while the remainder was retrieved and is awaiting a market.
“I loss big. I normally invest my pension monies into the crop. If the sea defence team had inserted a tubing, creating an outlet for the rain water, the waters would have receded, and we could have saved some of the crop. Or we could have started to replant,” Seeram said, as he removed some of the water-soaked vines and premature vegetables from his
