Agriculture Minister, Zulfikar Mustapha and a team of senior officers from the ministry on Friday told farmers from along the Pomeroon River in Region Two that they will soon benefit from an improved drainage and irrigation system and aid with planting materials.
According to a Ministry of Agriculture press release, the minister, who was hosting meetings at Jacklow and Marlborough, said that his ministry had included a proposal to procure a pontoon, outfitted with two excavators into its 2021 Budget.
Mustapha also promised the farmers and residents that the pontoon and excavators will remain in the Pomeroon, once they’ve been approved in the budget estimates. Over the past few weeks, several communities along the Pomeroon River had experienced severe flooding, which was a result of constant rainfall and the overtopping of the Pomeroon River, leaving almost 150 households severely affected.
The priority concern for the farmers and residents who attended the meetings, was the urgency for excavation works to be carried out on a number of the intermediate drainage canals. According to the release, Dexter Cameron, a farmer from Marlborough, said that the small farmers in the community were experiencing issues with intermediate drainage and cannot afford to do much on their own.
“The smaller farmers, and they are many, are having a problem with intermediate drainage. The sea dam and the river dams are being built but there’s a struggle within the farms themselves. That’s where we need some assistance. Pomeroon is a low land and we cannot blame the government when the rain falls but we can ask for help to deal with this problem,” Cameron said
Brian Ali, a farmer from Marlborough, spoke about the condition of the mouth of the Pomeroon River, “…the major concern, where drainage is concern, is the dredging of the Pomeroon River. In 2005 I did raise this issue and some persons objected to it. If we are in a basin, and the mouth of the river is shallow, only a certain amount of water could pass out there. People are suggesting that we dig more canals to the river but it would be the same thing if the rain falls because the mouth of the river is shallow.
It needs dredging”, Ali said. In responding to the farmer’s comments, Mustapha said that the ministry did discuss carrying out works at the mouth of the Pomeroon River.
Another area of concern was the planting materials needed by farmers, most of whom indicated that their resources were heavily impacted by the rainy season and flooding that ensued. Shiak Yussuf, a farmer from Jacklow, said that farmers needed planting materials to be able to return to their farms after most of their crops were damaged due to the recent instances of prolonged flooding in the region. Cameron asked for assistance with chemicals in cultivating coconut. Another farmer, Ali, said “Today we have cases of infestation of the red palm mite and recently, I’ve seen the coconut cockle. The chemicals that we use would also help to alleviate that very cockle infestation.”
Mustapha promised that a team from the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) will return to conduct assessments, and based on the findings of those assessments, farmers will be given assistance in the form of planting materials, fertilizers and other chemicals so that they can return to their cultivation. These assessments, he said, will commence within the coming days. He assured farmers that, they too, would benefit from the same level of assistance as farmers along the coast and other parts of the country, who were affected by flooding had received.
The farmers also said that more block drain structures needed to be installed along those riverine communities. The minister did promise that his ministry would resume the distribution of block tubes through the NDIA; however, the minister noted that this will only happen after the budget is approved.
