While the Mahaica-Mahaicony-Abary/Agricultural Development Authority (MMA/ADA) is aware of the needed for the realignment of state lands in several villages along the West Coast of Berbice, the General Manager of the authority says there are no funds to do the needed work.
In a letter published in Stabroek News two weeks ago, Clifford Stanley pointed out that there are at least three villages, Mon Choisi, Edderton, and Zee Lust that are affected by how the drainage and irrigation channels are aligned to the lands.
“Ideally Editor, the agricultural/backdam lands of these villages should be situated at right angles to the D&I network so that a farmer can access irrigation supplies at one end of his field and discharge such supplies at the other end of the field (the drainage end) when supplies are no longer needed,” Stanley said, before adding that the villagers are unable to access the drainage and irrigation networks because of the way the lands are set up. He said even though the infrastructure for increased agricultural production and poverty alleviation is in place, the current alignment of lands are counterproductive. “The result is that people have arable freehold land that they cannot fully utilize; so there is poverty, socio-economic problems; urban drift and migration,” he added.
Stanley also pointed out several solutions and explained that the agricultural lands in the villages should be surveyed and measured, in their current north to south alignment, to determine their size and then they should be changed to an east to west alignment.
“This is absolutely necessary land reform and the MMA-ADA should be doing it. Indeed the MMA-ADA has done such realignment of lands in other villages on the WCB where the land holdings and the D&I system were parallel to each other,” the letter said.
However, according to General Manager of the MMA/ADA Aubrey Charles, the authority is aware of the issues being faced by the villages but does not have the funding to undertake the works. He explained that a project of that sort would cost “a lot of money” and until they get the funding they cannot address it.
“We can consider putting it in for the next budget but unless we get the money, we can’t do the work. When the government is doing appropriation, you have to prioritize,” he said.
“When the D&I works were constructed, the drains and canals ran in a north to south position and the lands, some of these lands, the state lands, ran in a similar position and so if you have five acres of land and it runs north to south, then it means if you are near to the north you will get drainage but no irrigation and you’d have to run across somebody land. If you are the middle then it would be difficult to get either,” Charles pointed out, while stating that the last realignment was done around 1995, when areas including Washington, Rising Sun, Lichfield, Bushlot, Experiment, Bath and Hope were realigned.
He said since then the MMA/ADA would have realized that there was a need to realign the lands into an east to west position and reemphasized that the lack of funding is preventing them from embarking on the task.
