-concerned over delay in granting leases
More than thirty farmers in the Dallawalla area of Region Ten may have give up sections of their farms along a two-mile stretch of arable agricultural land adjacent to the Demerara River to make way for what an official of the Region Ten Farmers Association has told Stabroek Business is a move to construct port facilities along the river front.
Vice President of the Association Yogeshwar Rhambharrat told Stabroek Business that more than thirty farmers could be forced to shift their operations about 500 feet inward from the river bank to make way for planned port development facilities to accommodate the movement of cargo expected to arrive in the country via the Guyana/Brazil road.
And according to Rhambharrat the farmers, most of whom are holding leases to the lands, will face difficulties associated with access to water if they are forced to relocate further from the riverside. Additionally, Rhambharrat said that any relocation will mean that the farmers will have to abandon crops already planted at the location.
The area from which Rhambharrat says the farmers face eviction stretches from the Dallawalla creek to the Omai port, an area which he says has been used for farming for several decades. He said that the land had originally been under the control of the now defunct Linmine and had since been returned to government control.
According to Rhambharrat the farmers have been having meetings with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Department of Lands and Surveys and that they had been told as recently as three weeks ago that they would have to remove.
Rhambharrat, who operates an acre farm at Dallawalla told Stabroek Business that it was ironic that pressure was being placed on the farmers to resite their operations at a time when there was increasing focus on cultivating more food. He said that as far as he was aware the farmers in the area would only be prepared to relocate willingly if government could allocate them an alternative farming area with comparable infrastructure close to the Wismar market area.
The Dallawalla farming community covers an area of more than 3,000 acres and the leases granted to some farmers allowed for both farming and the construction of homes.
Stabroek Business understands that almost two years ago 30 farmers at Dallawalla had been promised leases to twenty acres of land each for cultivation, during a visit to the area by President Bharrat Jagdeo with the proviso that the second 10 acres would be released only after the first 10 acres had been brought under cultivation. According to a Region Ten source those leases are yet to be granted. The source told Stabroek Business that the delay in granting the leases to farmers at Dallawalla was a microcosm of a wider problem in the region where farmers have been awaiting leases for several years. The source said LEAP had commenced funding the surveying of agricultural lands in the region but had since ceased the exercise since no leases for the surveyed lands had been forthcoming.
