From school days to adulthood, Mahendra Sookraj’s love for planting and animal husbandry have helped him to initially stave off hunger, then to feed his family, to earn an income apart from whatever else he did, in order to build his own home and to live a comfortable and fulfilling life to date, while still helping others.
But the road he took in farming had many challenges and some other persons would have given up but his love and the benefits he knew he could derive from his pursuits in agriculture made him persevere.
“Agriculture is something quite challenging but it is something I love. A true farmer is not one who would take a pen and paper to calculate his profits. A true farmer really works to see whatever he produces reach the mouth of the consumer. If you don’t love it, don’t do it. It would be calamitous. Farming has been the backbone for everything I have.”
Sookraj, 54, of Bella Dam, Pouderoyen, West Bank Demerara, told Stabroek Weekend that his parents used to work six months at the match factory at Vreed-en-Hoop, and the other six months which included the Christmas season, they would be at home, unemployed.
The youngest of five siblings in the family, he said, the family had no direct access to investments or any means to source money. “Poverty is the reason I started farming. We were five siblings, two boys and three girls. My brother was a mechanic. He hadn’t time to help me. He was an alcoholic. My sisters were married except for one, who had broken up with her husband and she and her child were under my care.”
At 14 years, Sookraj planted about 40 roots of pigeon peas plant and he reaped a bountiful crop. “We used to eat peas and rice every day. The pigeon peas were more economical at that time because we used to cook four pints of pigeon peas to one pint of rice. We had to buy rice and we hadn’t money to buy rice, so we would eat pigeon peas all the year round.”
After his initial success with the pigeon peas, Sookraj said, “I became enthused with the idea of farming because had it not been for the land I would have been hungry.”
Well-spoken and a good conversationalist, Sookraj was educated at Vreed-en-Hoop Community High, where he wrote the Secondary Schools Proficiency Examinations and obtained four subjects with distinction. He was given a place at West Demerara Secondary School but because his father could not afford to send him he left school and turned to gardening and apprenticeship carpentry.
Self-taught
Still a teenager, Sookraj quit carpentry and started to work with Khemraj Ramjattan and another attorney at law as a filing clerk. In the meantime, he also started London Cambridge Certificate classes at the Maraj Building where lessons were being conducted in the evenings.
“I couldn’t complete it because family commitment was too strong. By this time, I was married and it was too much work.”
At work he began to learn typewriting and mastered the art so he became a typist clerk. He worked for the lawyers for three and a half years during which time his wife became pregnant. Sookraj and his wife Maureen were married when he was 19 years and she was 16.
But not being certified did not stop Sookraj from acquiring knowledge through reading. An avid reader, who could read for as much as eight hours a day given the time, he taught himself many things in agriculture and others things he loves doing. He is adept at using Google and YouTube.
“What me love, me have a passion for doing. I don’t really like carpentry but I do it for survival.”
He said he has learned that agriculture is not just digging a hole and putting in a seed. “You have to know of the deficiencies in the micro and macro nutrients in some plants, crop rotation and how to rejuvenate the soil. A foolish man could make a house but to get your hands in the ground you have to know what you are doing.”
He recalls that on March 3rd, in 1989, the budget day, his first son took ill with gastro. “I couldn’t afford to pay the bills at Prashad Hospital. I had some sheep I was rearing that I slaughtered so as to pay off the medical expenses.”
Sookraj has two sons and two daughters. His older daughter who also has a deep love for agriculture owns the company I&S Wholesalers, which supplies fresh vegetables to a number of leading markets and oil companies operating in Guyana.
Following his son’s illness, Sookraj left his regular job in the city. “I recognised that the land could sustain me from hunger and it gave me some dignity because I don’t have to run with my plate to anyone. I began expanding on it.”
He also found a job as a security guard working from 9.00 pm to day light and then tending to his crops and flocks during the early part of the day.
“My wife gave me a lot of support,” he said.
He recalled that a neighbour had given him a blind yard hen, which he cared for. “When it started laying, we hatched the eggs. Then we began doing ducks. We sell out the ducks and we bought goats. We sell out the goats and we bought cows. We sell out the cows and I cast the foundation for my first house.”
Nine years after building his first house, he said, the area experienced a massive flood and he could not sustain his livestock or farming venture in that area because of lack of proper drainage required.
“After we had the flood, I sold the cows first and bought this land. Then I sold the house and took the proceeds from that sale to start building this house we’re now living in.”
He bought the land, averaged about a quarter of an acre, for over $600,000 and had to get the land filled.
“After I got it filled, I decided to do some planting on it. I anticipated I would have 90 plantain beds on a rotational basis that would drive me to complete self-employment. This did not happen. After I decided to plant, nothing would grow. [Then] I found out the soil came from the bottom of a trench and nothing could grow in it.”
From hydroponics to poultry
Thinking how he could put the land to agricultural uses, Sookraj got in touch with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), which had been promoting hydroponics.
CIDA immediately put him in touch with the country director for the Partners of the Americas, Kelvin Craig, who sent an extension officer to his home in Pouderoyen within 24 hours of the call.
So began his hydroponics experience. He built a greenhouse, 40 ft by 20 ft in width and length and 14 ft in height at the highest point and 10 feet in height at the lowest point.
“The greenhouse was at the back of the house. They provided me with one-year supply of hydroponics fertilisers. I was planting celery, tomatoes, lettuce and sweet pepper. The greenhouse was able to supplement my salary. If I had depended on my security work alone I would have gone hungry. At night I did security work and in the day I was in the greenhouse.”
“I would try to get the work done in the greenhouse early so I get to sleep before going to work. Sometimes when I wake up I would ask myself if I must work. But I had to go. My wife did a lot of work in the greenhouse too. When I couldn’t get up she would get up.”
When the one year was up, Sookraj said, he could not source the hydroponics fertilisers because they were not available locally and he had to find another source of income.
After hydroponics he started rearing layers along with some ducks, the Giant Black fowl and sheep.
At present, he said, the increase in the cost of feed by $600 per bag or $6 per pound, the increase in cost for an egg tray from $25 each to $50 and a box from $70 to $160 each has impacted his business. The operational cost for a tray of eggs is $700 and he still has to deal with the cost of distribution.
“Right now because of my operational expenses, my worker earn more than I do. This happened because even though the cost of production has increased the price of eggs remains the same.”
He noted that the demand for eggs in the community is not as great as when schools are open. “Eggballs nah mek. No boil egg in anybody lunch kit.”
He has been in the layer business for five years going on to six and with the cost of stockfeed increasing he began rearing sheep.
“If sheep could eat grass and convert it to meat, it means inevitably that it would be a profitable business. I started with two sheep. I used to leave them to graze outside of my yard but that started to cause problems. People started erecting palling and putting up fences. I didn’t give up. I brought my sheep within my fence and I cut my own grass. Now they are being managed in intensive care.”
He obtained an obsolete grass chopping machine with the help of the Guyana Livestock Development Authority and he installed a motor and refurbished it. This has made the chopping of the grass easier or he would have had to use a cutlass to manually chop the grass.
When he began, he said, the mortality rate among the sheep was high because of heavy rainfall. “When the rain fell, water used to get into the pens. The area became saturated and eventually they got foot rot. I elevated the pens and eliminated the foot rot and costs that went with it. I employed no one to build my pens. I couldn’t afford it. Now I get a high lambing rate because my mortality rate is virtually zero. Most of the sheep are reproducing. The floor is elevated and slatted. So when they urinate and defecate, everything falls below and the floor remains dry.”
Because of the intensive care given to the sheep, Sookraj said, “When the time comes for them to give birth you are there. They aren’t in any mud or dogs can’t eat them. So far for the year, I have 12 births and no deaths, which is remarkable. The year before last year I had seven deaths. Now the lambs are growing well. I started with two and now I have 32.”
Experimenting and other crops
At present, Sookraj is experimenting with the land aback of the sheep and fowl pens in an attempt to bring it back to fertility. He would take the sheep waste (manure) and place it on the land for compost. In that area are the Black Giant chicken. “I am experimenting at the back to see if I can bring the land back to fertility. The chicken would scratch up the ground and allow the manure with microorganisms to enter the soil. From the time organic manure hits the ground, you find micro-organisms start breeding.”
He is rearing ducks, he said, to supplement the expenses for rearing the layers. The money from the duck goes to offsetting the costs of chicken feed. “One of the reasons I am doing the ducks is because they are more hardy than chickens.”
In his yard can be found many herbs and plants. This include an arbour with grapes at the front of the yard, which people and the birds compete to eat.
“The grape plant took 14 months to bear. It has a life span of six to ten years. If you really want to grow grapes you have to make sure that the arbour is strong enough to withstand the forces of nature for at least six to ten years. The grapes are purple when ripe. We pick and eat them at any time because the birds also feast on them.”
Alongside the fence are found among other crops, sweet neem also known as the curry tree or in Hindi kari patta, a species of soft sweet cane, plantain plants that bear bunches weighting over 50 pounds, and taro or tannia plants which he is also using as an experiment for fodder for the ducks.
“My biggest ambition is to do dragon fruit,” he said.
One of the challenges he has faced along with other small farmers is the need for land for both for animals and plants.
“If I am to sustain myself completely, it would be necessary for me to have land. As much as the government is trying, I am worried about the role of the small farmers. We need to be given more scope. I am sure if proper economic opportunities present themselves, I can excel even at this age.”
