Three months after the Mahaicony Creek started experiencing flooding, the water continues drop though heavy rainfall sends it back up.
A young farmer, Daindaw Persaud of Gordon Table told Stabroek News yesterday that “the water drop a little” and even though he is relieved, it did not offer him much comfort.
He was distressed that his farm where he planted cassava, plantain, passion fruit and cherries, had already been destroyed.
Persaud said hucksters would go in the area and purchase his produce at wholesale prices to resell at the market. He is not earning at the moment and was worried about how long the situation would remain like that.
He said too that his 12 cows were “punishing” without grass and that he has tried to put them on a “high spot” to avoid being in the water.
A rice farmer told this newspaper that he tried for a long time to save his rice crop and started to lose hope three days ago when “the dam blow away and duck out the rice field.”
He said “half of the rice rotten already” and he is trying desperately to save the other half. He had invested a lot of money in the crop and now has to endure extra expenses on fuel to pump the water into the trench. The Mahaica, Mahaicony, Abary-Agricultural Development Authority has since sent an excavator to seal up the damaged part on the dam.
According to another farmer whose land is higher, he tried for a long time to save his cash crop farm, where he has peppers, passion fruit, limes, ochro and papaya plants. Sadly, he said, the plants have now started to get yellow.
They were disappointed that no one from the government went to “check on we losses and offer any compensation. “We lost a lot and it would be hard to go back on the crop if don’t get some help,” the residents said. Contacted, Regional Chairman, Vickchand Ramphal confirmed that the water has just receded slightly in the creek and that the farmers are still being affected.
He related that residents of Trafalgar are much more relieved now while the water in Moraikobai has started to recede.
