Earthquake-hit Trinidad farmers still awaiting help

(Trinidad Guardian) Earth­quake dis­placed farm­ers from Los Iros are beg­ging the Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture Clarence Ramb­harat to make good on his promise to re­lo­cate them.

Its been al­most a month since 100 acres of arable farm­lands were de­stroyed in the 6.9 mag­ni­tude earth­quake.

Since then farm­ers have been un­able to sow or har­vest their crops.

Nob­bie Mathu­ra, who cul­ti­vates five ar­eas, said it breaks his heart to see fields of pep­pers and oth­er crops go to waste.

“I am ex­treme­ly dis­ap­point­ed and de­pressed be­cause time is pass­ing and noth­ing is be­ing done to re­lo­cate us in a time­ly man­ner,” he said.

Mathu­ra said when Ramb­harat vis­it­ed on Au­gust 23, he as­sured that all pro­duc­tive farm­ers would be re­lo­cat­ed as soon as pos­si­ble. How­ev­er, Mathu­ra said en­gi­neers from the min­istry are now say­ing that he can­not be re­lo­cat­ed be­cause he does not have a lease to the land.

“I have pep­pers to pick. That crop was sup­posed to last over a six-month pe­ri­od but since the ponds dried up af­ter the earth­quake the fields are dry­ing,” Mathu­ra added.

He called on Ramb­harat to or­gan­ise to have the ponds dug once more to save what was left of their agri­cul­tur­al es­tates.

Los Iros Hillview Farm­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Reshi­nand Ram­raj said he was al­so hop­ing the re­lo­ca­tion process could be done quick­ly.

“We are just wait­ing on the min­istry and no one has told us any­thing. They re­paired the road and work is on­go­ing right now but we are still wait­ing to see what will hap­pen. Farm­ers are re­al­ly suf­fer­ing. We are not sat­is­fied,” Ram­raj said.

He al­so ex­pressed hope that the farm­ers will be com­pen­sat­ed.

“If we can get back some kind of as­sis­tance to get back on our feet we will be able to be­gin cul­ti­vat­ing soon,” Ram­raj added.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter Ramb­harat said the process was tak­ing longer than an­tic­i­pat­ed and he could not give a date as to when the re­lo­ca­tion will oc­cur.

“The min­istry’s en­gi­neer­ing team has been in Los Iros since the earth­quake. They are work­ing on the is­sues. They are not sim­ple is­sues,” he said.

Asked whether it was pos­si­ble to have the ponds fixed, Ramb­harat said, “The farm­ers are re­quest­ing as­sis­tance to pre­pare the lands they are cur­rent­ly oc­cu­py­ing. One per­son is on 25 acres of for­est re­serve il­le­gal­ly. Be­fore we do any­thing we have to de­ter­mine the ge­o­log­i­cal is­sues in con­tin­u­ing to op­er­ate on that site; the en­gi­neer­ing works that are re­quired; and the re­lo­ca­tion op­tions.”

He said seis­mol­o­gists and ge­ol­o­gists were work­ing with the min­istry’s en­gi­neer­ing team.

“Our en­gi­neers are down there work­ing with them and pro­vid­ing sup­port,” Ramb­harat added.