As rice farmers all over the country harvest their crops, the farmers in the Mahaica and Mahaicony areas are patiently waiting to find out if they will receive assistance for the next crop after the losses they suffered due to the punishing El Nino drought.
However, Agriculture Minister Noel Holder says that in order for any assistance to be considered, there needs to be a full assessment of the losses that the farmers have experienced and this cannot be done until the ministry receives full information.
“Well, right now we deh at the harvesting stage and that is what most farmers are doing. We ain’t finish or anything and we ain’t getting any major problems with it besides the lil rain that de fall last month,” Danny (only name given), a rice farmer from Mahaica, explained to Stabroek News yesterday.
“It ain finish yet but soon everybody should and the only thing that on people’s mind right now is paddy price and if the government gonna assist we that lose big,” he added, while stating that since the farmers started complaining and making appeals no one has sought to give them any definite word on whether they would be getting any assistance.
“They [government] should really look into helping us. I ain’t lose as much as some farmers and nuff of them lost like half and like 200 acres and them things. That’s nuff, partner, and them men need the help ’cause is because of MMA [Mahaica/Mahaicony/Abary-Agricultural Development Authority] that most of them didn’t get water to save they crops and if you ask any farmer they gon’ tell you how hard it is to get back a loan, to even start back, so they need lil help,” he said, while stressing that the government should consider assisting the farmers however little it can.
Addressing the price for a bag of paddy, he said that the prices that were announced so far are unreasonable and only serve to put the farmers in worse situations. “So far, the prices ranging from $2,400 to $2,700 and is only one man offering $2,700 and that’s not going to do enough,” he said.
Speaking to Stabroek News yesterday, Holder said the ministry was expecting a higher loss of the rice crops due to the drought. He said it was expecting around a 20% loss but that figure was not anywhere near the actual one.
Stabroek News was unable to procure the exact figures from the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB).
Because of the limited amount of water flowing in the canals, due to the drought, all of the Mahaica and Mahaicony farmers were forced to use external pumps to water their lands. However, there wasn’t enough water to supply all of the farmers.
As the demand for water grew, some farmers started selfishly blocking the canals, thereby preventing water from flowing to the farmers who were farther away from the source. The MMA-ADA and the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) had announced that anyone caught tampering with the irrigation systems would face the possibility of prosecution and being fined.
Despite being warned and encouraged to let the water flow properly through the canals, the farmers closer to the stream continued to pump the water, which forced the MMA-ADA to institute regulations. Dividing the farmlands into five blocks, the authority had announced that each block would be allowed to pump water from the canal for two days with Block 1 (the farmlands farthest away from the water source) receiving water for the first two days.
However, the system never worked as farmers from other blocks continued to siphon off water every day. Suffering farmers requested stronger action from the authority, but none was taken.
