A group of farmers from West Coast Berbice journeyed to the city yesterday to picket the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of the Presidency over land that they are to be evicted from.
Over 200 farmers, including some who have been farming on the land for close to 30 years, could be affected. They told Stabroek News (SN) that they have already invested in the crop and that they stand to lose millions of dollars if they are removed.
Krishna Sewlall, vice-chairman of the Naarstigheid/Hopetown Farmers’ Association (NHFA) said that the new Regional Executive Officer (REO) of Region Five, Ovid Morrison is claiming that they have been occupying the land illegally and wants them to remove.
This newspaper tried to contact the REO but he was not available at the time. The farmers said they were picketing because they want the Minister of Agriculture (MOA), Noel Holder and President David Granger to intervene so they can continue to earn their livelihood.
They have been engaging in cash crop and livestock farming and tilapia rearing and said if they are removed, the region would have to find an alternative arrangement for them.
They noted too that they can never be compensated for the investment they made, which included clearing and developing the land as well as treating the worm infested coconut trees and planting
new ones. Morison did not send any written notices for the farmers to vacate but he placed signs in front of all of the farms that read: “no trespassing.” The sign also included his telephone number.
“He never consulted with us, he just held a meeting and said he would evict us,” Sewlall said.
Ivan Harry, chairman of the NHFA told SN that they have not gone back on the land since “because we do not want problem with the law. So our plants are dying… we are here to plead with Mr. Granger to have an input into that and we can continue doing our farming.”
He said too that apart from spending a lot of money and time on the land, they have provided employment for people.
“We are growing more food; the government is advocating farming in the country and that is what we have been doing. We want to know whether we can get some help from the government. This is nothing political or racial or nothing…”
Sewlall said: “Over the years we have been assisted by the MMA (Mahaica, Mahaicony, Abary-Agricultural Development Authority) and the UNDP and at the moment we are being assisted by the Ministry of Business to construct two shade houses.”He said too that, “Former President, Donald Ramotar had also assisted us with desilting the canals and through the CIDA programme we received water pumps.”
The land belonged to the MMA and was leased to the RDC but Sewlall said they were never prevented from using it.
According to him, “An occupational survey was done but the RDC and the MMA never stopped us. Now the REO is trying to evict us…”
Sewlall said too that the Regional Chairman (acting), Rion Peters had told the farmers that the REO got no permission from the RDC to evict the farmers. “He acted on his own behalf and he gave us three months to move,” he told this newspaper.
He said too that President Granger was at Fort Wellington a few months ago “encouraging farmers in Region Five to cultivate crops and to choose agriculture as a career and to grow more. And now the REO wants to stop us from farming to do his project.”
He said they had been squatting on the land but a former REO had given them written permission to use the land for two years to do cash crop farming. They used the letter to access funding to support their farming activities.
They continued from then and said that the General Secretary of MMA, Aubrey Charles and the former MOA, the late Satyadeow Sawh visited the farmers four times in one month
