As the end of the crop cycle for rice in Mahaica and Mahaicony approaches, farmers have given up the fight to save their dying and almost dead crops and are seeking assistance from the government to restart planting in the coming months.
“They warned us about the El Nino drought but what were we supposed to do? Nobody plant? I planting rice about 25 years and I never had to expend so much resource to less land too,” Vijai (only name given) a rice farmer from De Kinderen, Mahaicony, told Stabroek News yesterday. He said that while usually he would use approximately 100 gallons of fuel to get water onto 100 acres of land, he has had to use more to get water onto less land.
“I don’t know how some people are going to make it back especially those who are in debt. I mill my own paddy
