Dear Editor,
I have noticed that the big players in the rice industry are moving away towards the coconut industry, cultivating hundreds of acres of coconuts in the Pomeroon and elsewhere. This is a good move since the price for rice and paddy has fallen. This is not to say that rice and paddy don’t have a place in our economy; with the new varieties the yield is very high, as much as 50 bags per acre, and the mill recovery is excellent. It has always been the case that prices are one time up and another time down. These were never stable in a free-market economy, so to blame the government for the markets and low price for rice paddy is nonsense; it’s a matter of demand and supply.
Coconuts are the third staple crop after sugar and rice, and much more interest should be paid by the government and the Agriculture Ministry to them since a lot of rice farmers are diversifying to coconuts, and the markets are already available overseas and locally. NAREI should pay closer attention by extending both technical and educational support to those farmers who continue to be affected by the red palm mite disease in the Pomeroon River and elsewhere. It also affects plantain suckers and once it is present in the areas with moco moco disease it can destroy an entire plantation.
Minister of Agriculture Noel Holder met with affected coconut farmers in the Pomeroon River on his outreach programme at Eliza Turn and the Government House some time ago, and assured them that his ministry would do everything to eradicate the disease. It is causing havoc with the wilting of the palm leaves and the trees not producing. A team of extension officers from NAREI was sent to the affected farmers’ plantations and did some work looking at the causes of the disease. The chemicals that were used have thus far proven effective; the farmers were in high praise of the government’s quick reaction to their only source of income. However, after the first visit there was no follow-up to see if the red mite disease had been eradicated completely. My understanding is that the disease is still present in the Pomeroon.
An education programme was started with the farmers on the red mite disease which was necessary, but there was no follow-up action by these officers. Farmers in the Pomeroon and Charity told me that they cannot get a coconut plant at the nursery at Charity, and there are no extension services here in Region Two. There is no laboratory either to do soil tests; for these to be done a farmer has to send the samples to Georgetown, and it takes months to get the results. Over the past years the government has made massive investments in the agriculture sector. The millions of dollars spent on research and training facilities have been invested to create favourable conditions for large and efficient agricultural production. We must now ensure that we get real benefits from our investments.
Yours faithfully,
Mohamed Khan
