– A Stabroek Business Column dedicated to the ventilation of ideas pertaining to the current global food crisis and the response by Guyana and the Caribbean
The current national focus on agro-industrial development as a response to the global and worsening food crisis must, of necessity in the upper Berbice River, take account of the Intermediate Savannahs. One should, of course, not attempt to conceive plans for the agro-industrial development of the Intermedi-ate Savannahs without embracing the integrated involvement of the adjacent communities.
In this issue, Stabroek Business publishes the first of a series of articles by Guyanese Agronomist Rowland Fletcher which addresses farming in the expanded upper Berbice River in its historical context and attempts to create a nexus between what currently exists and the socio-economic prospects for a well planned regime of sustainable agro-industrial development.
The series will consider agricultural development options that could stimulate economic activity in the riverain communities and the Intermediate Savannahs.
Upper Berbice River – Riverain Communities:
The upper Berbice River extends from the communities of De Veldt and Fort Nassau in the north, up river to Calcuni and Red Hill in the Tacama/ Ituni sub-district. Further south there is the mining district of Kwakwani.
The established communities are restricted in occupancy to the forested lands bordering the river banks. Since the main means of transportation is by river, ribbon river- bank development of homesteads is typical, with the lands beyond reserved for farming logging and other income-earning enterprises such as heart of palm collection and crabwood seed gathering for processing into oil and soaps.
Integrated Agricultural Development:
The occupational status quo of the upper Berbice River homesteader has experienced interesting evolutionary changes, conditioned by the socio economic vagaries over the past 50 years. Economic dependence has always been rooted in agriculture, but is significantly supported by logging and employment in the bauxite industry.
Slash and burn farming has been the age-old tradition. This system entails the felling and burning of a forested area followed by immediate cropping with selected root crops ground provisions and other cash crops. In previous years corn was an important component in this farming system. Indeed the upper Berbice river was once a major producer of dried corn grain which – during the 1970s and 19 80s – was shipped by the weekly steamer service and purchased by the Guyana Marketing Corporation for use as livestock feed.
During that period farmers benefited from a coordinated research/ extension programme which focused on the testing and introduction of maize varieties obtained from the CIMMYT, Mexico international research centre. On-farm demonstrations were conducted on the proper drying and storage of harvested grain to avoid post harvest losses during shipping.
Marketing was of course a major challenge.
The GMC marketing officer was mandated to purchase all the grain produced in the district, which was then transported by the weekly government steamer to New Amsterdam.
In addition to corn, the river farmers also produced and shipped significant quantities of ground provision, plantains, pumpkins and citrus.
The upper Berbice River farmers have struggled over
the decades to sustain their old agricultural traditions, and, in some cases have been obliged, through circumstances, to adjust their strategies for survival.
In 2005 the Office of the Prime Minister commissioned a study to identify conditions, which were constraining community development and economic growth, and to recommend remedial action. That study identified significant outward migration especially of young people, and lack of economic opportunity, difficulties in marketing agricultural produce, high cost of food and agricultural inputs as being among the primary challenges.
These communities have limited agri-business capacity, and have been obliged to function at the level of subsistence farming with less than reliable levels of institutional support.
In this contect it should be stated that support programmes will only be effective if they take careful account of the socio economic factors that drive the community. For example, the ongoing pumpkin production initiative based on the existence of reliable and sustainable export markets, must also take account of the importance of dedicated transportation arrangements to facilitate reliable delivery.
Additionally, sequential cropping patterns could be offered to farmers to sustain their long- term beneficial occupancy of the land that they have invested in quite heavily. This approach would represent a quantum leap from the traditional, cut, burn, plant and abandon cycle which may have been acceptable in the early days of low cost labor and ecological lassitude, but is now being frowned upon environmentally from a global warming / carbon sequestration perspective.
The flip side of the argument on sustained farming of cleared land after the first or second cropping cycle, are the challenges of access to, and high cost of the agricultural chemicals necessary to support the kind of continuous production which is being recommended to alleviate the current food crisis.
Farmers are also faced with the difficult decision of rotation sequences after two or three seasons of cropping, when the land would have lost its initial fertility. A return to fallow would mean additional costs for clearing new lands for subsequent crops.
In these circumstances, a logical agricultural development / production concept would be the introduction of orchard crops (citrus) and livestock (cattle and small ruminants) after initial cash cropping. However, we are again faced with the need for well organized institutional support programmes. Such programmes must be justified by appropriate agri-investment opportunities, an issue that will be addressed later in this series.
The Intermediate Savannahs:
The Intermediate Savannahs, which lie beyond the heavily forested riverain lands on both sides of the Berbice river are virtually uninhabited, save for the few entrepreneurs and developers pursuing large scale agriculture. This vast sub-region of 150000 hectares – 50000 of which are arable, and suitable for large scale commercial agriculture is associated with the riverain communities.
During the 1940’s and 1950’s when the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the British Overseas Development Administration initiated joint agricultural initiatives to determine the agricultural potential of these low fertility sandy soils, it was the local riverain residents together with some families from the West coast Berbice region that provided the manpower and basic skills to support the diverse agricultural research and development projects which eventually provided the foundation for the pioneering efforts on large scale commercial agriculture which were to follow in the 1970s. It was the successors to these pioneering families that formed the base of support for the establishment and operation of the massive National Service (GNS) effort at Kimbia and the large-scale commercial production of cotton and legumes.
These community stakeholders benefited from their experience in savannah farming and formed the nucleus of the group of farmers who ventured into commercial savannah agriculture during and after the closure of GNS.
The pioneering savannah farmers who evolved over the past thirty years, possessed two common qualities-youth and enterprise. They started as occasional peanut and red pea / blackeye farmers on open savannah lands on which they squatted. Their support came from the savannah farming experience, which they had gained through their employment at Kimbia, or on the Ebini cattle ranch and NARI Ebini field research Station. They were also facilitated through access to stockpiles of fertilizer and limestone left from the defunct cotton project at Kimbia. In the Kimbia and Ebini savannahs on the eastern bank, and the St Lust Manakaburi and Friendship savannahs on the western bank of the Berbice River, they cultivated and marketed red pea, peanuts melons and a range of cash crops.
In 2000, 47 of these individuals residing in the Upper Berbice Riverain communities of Kimbia, Ebini, St Lust and De Veldt, were allocated lands in the adjacent Intermediate Savannahs at Wiruni / St Lust on long term 50 year agricultural leases. Leased acreages were no less than 10 ha (approximately 25 acres). This would be a major milestone in their farming history as riverain farmers who had previously been farming peanuts, peas and other cash crops in the same location with no legal rights.
