A protracted ‘territorial’ controversy was still ensuing between rice and cattle farmers in the Kokerite Savannahs in the Black Bush Polder when the Stabroek Business made its second visit there last week, our first visit having been made back in 2015. The kernel of the controversy has to do with the respective ‘occupancy rights’ of rice and cattle farmers. Both groups are anxious to secure and maintain land on which to engage in their ‘competing’ agricultural pursuits.
What we had been told some time ago, was that there was an undocumented, but ‘clear’ understanding, that rice cultivation was ‘restricted’ to the ‘front lands’ of Lesbeholden, Johanna, Mibicuri and Yakusari whilst the two-mile long ‘backlands’ would be the domain of the cattle. This understanding has not, it seems, been ‘holding up’ too well. The ‘understanding,’ we are told, had become ‘fuzzy’ once the rice farmers had been given limited clearance to pursue cultivation. The idea was deemed to be an unwise one since, we are told, cattle are partial to rice stalks as part their diet. As is the case in so many other instances, however, decisions, once made, are often not easily reversible.