Farmers in Hope/Dochfour continue to suffer both during the rainy and dry seasons as a result of the construction of the Northern Relief Channel, known as the Hope Canal, meant to relieve the stress on the East Demerara Water Conservancy.
Those who have their farms at the Hope Estate want government to speedily address their concerns, since they are losing their investments owing to the lack of water in the dry season. They allege that since the work on the canal commenced, a key waterway which provided their drainage and irrigation was cut off. They said that as a result, they get floods during the rainy season and no water for their land during the dry season.
Efforts to contact Minister of Agriculture Dr Leslie Ramsammy, his deputy Alli Baksh and Head of the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) Lionel Wordsworth proved futile.
“They [NDIA] supposed to bring water from Ann’s Grove to service two sections – Dochfour East and West. That is what they are supposed to do since they started the canal. [But] until now they ain’t do nothing about that. They are supposed to do the drainage too and they are not talking nothing about that,” Roy Doodnauth lamented.
He said the situation was like this since the commencement of work on the canal at the end of 2011. “The minister is giving a completion date of August [2013] but this cannot finish [by then],” Doodnauth said.
“I glad for Ramsammy to come and see but none of them not coming; they only talking on TV and in the papers,” he said.
Doodnauth said he has already lost about $100,000 worth of produce in just one week and stands to lose more if the situation remains the way it is. He showed Stabroek News the state of his cucumbers after they were left to bake in the sun with no water to irrigate the land. He said the few that were unharmed were those covered by foliage and protected somewhat from the sun’s rays. He said it was an expensive venture to pump water to facilitate the watering the beds with the produce.
Another farmer, Harry Rampersaud, who plants rice, said he also was suffering. “I don’t really know what me gon do because all me infrastructure works, all me pipe, all me sluice, all me drain, everything them damage and they never put back nothing,” Rampersaud said.
The man who has over 50 acres of rice cultivated, said he is pumping as much as he could to save his crop. They segregate me… They divide me so I have to carry pump at each section and it is hard to get labour, pay to put down the pump,” he said.
“I don’t know what to do. I am thinking of grading the land up and planting fruit trees. That would help a little. Because if you mind fish in the land people come and catch them,” he said.
“These things are grieving me right now. All the time I am being frustrated and I don’t know what to do with life. Imagine from 4 in the morning and sometimes whole night to have to be pumping water,” he said.
The US$15 million canal is meant to be an alternative to discharging through the Lama Stop Off and Maduni Sluice and will take the water to the Atlantic Ocean. However, engineers said recently that the work being done was substandard. Some months ago, engineers even questioned the wisdom behind the project in the first place.
