Several East Coast communities are benefiting from drainage and irrigation (D&I) works that will lessen the impact of heavy rainfall on those communities as well put infrastructure in place to encourage farming.
According to a Government Information Agency (GINA) press release Minister of Agriculture Robert Persaud said current investments in the D&I system in the area include excavating drains and canals, repairing sluices, kokers and intake structures, upgrading access dams, desilting outfall canals and reactivating structures that were closed in the 1970s and 1980s.
Persaud told Victoria/Belfield, Buxton and Montrose residents said these works are intended to encourage farmers to re-cultivate lands by providing the basic infrastructure. It is also in response to residents’ requests to re-develop agriculture in their communities. These investments fall under the ongoing ‘Grow more’ initiative aimed at increasing food production for each household and community in order to make them self-sufficient.
In this regard, East Coast farmers and others countrywide are guaranteed further support in terms of extension services, technical advice, seeds, planting materials and agro-chemicals. They will also have access to the Guyana Marketing Corporation for guidance as they embark on the agricultural drive to ensure that their cultivation and livestock rearing activities are market-driven and done on a commercial level.
At Victoria/Belfield, efforts are being made to repair a sluice to serve as a regulator for releasing water from the Hope drainage system into the Victoria channel for discharge through nearby pumps. This system is being put in place for use only when there is a high tide in the Hope area. The works are being conducted by the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (ND&IA), the farmers’ group and the area’s Neighbourhood Democratic Council. Other drainage works being pursued include a programme for desilting the various outfall channels. The ND&IA is awaiting completion of pontoons to transport its long-boom excavators to clear the outfalls.
Persaud also inspected several other ongoing D&I projects. He assessed the desilting of the Buxton pump basin; a project valued about $60M that will improve D&I significantly and minimise flooding during heavy rainfall. Another major project is underway at Montrose to bolster the area’s D&I system by reconfiguring a section of the sluice that discharges water from the pump basin. The sluice had been inoperable for three years and during the high spring tide and heavy rainfall, drainage was restrained to operation at peak hours. The ongoing works are estimated at $14M and are being done by the ND&IA and the Guyana Sugar Corporation which manages the Montrose pump station.
According to GINA, Persaud was accompanied by Region Four Chairman Clement Corlette and ND&IA Chief Executive Officer Lionel Wordsworth.
