Just a few weeks ago a farming cooperative in the Mocha/Arcadia community executed two Farmers’ Markets over a relatively short period. These attracted residents from both within and outside the community. It was the same, more recently, when the communities of Belladrum, Hopetown and Number Twenty Three in Region Five as well as Linden in Region Ten also held Farmers’ Markets in quick succession. All of these were covered to varying degrees by the Stabroek Business.
Beyond those, farmers in Regions Two and Three with whom we have spoken have also devised means by which, outside of their routine vending practices, they can reach consumers with their fruits and vegetables.
We have, also, over time, published stories of the more arduous existence of the farmers in the hinterland communities, their circumstances being a function, largely, of the environmental conditions that they must endure.
The seasonal rains have come this time on top of the restrictive environment resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic which has brought its own demons. We have become intimate with the adjustments that the farmers have had to make, working around the strictures in order to keep their mostly modest enterprises going, and up until now, without the level of support from the state that would allow for them, their families and their livelihoods to see themselves through the ensuing onslaught.
The rains have come on top of all this and our own editorial effort has provided a snapshot of the consequences reflected in our admittedly modest coverage of the consequences of the flooding in the Amerindian village of Karaudarnau in Region Nine and in the Mocha/Arcadia community in Region Four. In each instance and particularly in the instance of Karaudarnau the dislocations resulting from the floods have been life and livelihood-threatening and while one assumes that there exists some centralized flood response plan that continues to be rolled out, it does no harm, we believe, to raise the issue of the robustness of the official response, particularly since, in the instances of both Karaudarnau and Mocha/Arcadia, information coming from the horses’ mouths suggests that there exists a historic grouse over what is felt to be gaping flaws in the manner in which the political decision-making is ensuing where remedies are concerned.
This newspaper does not pretend to be experts on the engineering associated with flood control in Guyana. However, we found the perspective of the Toshao from Karaudarnau on just why the flooding in the community has been so devastating, enlightening. Nobody listens to the people who know, is what he seemed to be saying.
The residents of Mocha/Arcadia have proffered their own accounts of just why their farms have been flooding and these are not altogether different from the views expressed by the Amerindian official at Karaudarnau.
In Georgetown there are the familiar criticisms of engineering decisions associated with managing the city, not least some of those that have to do with the construction of properties and the configuration of drainage. What is to be done? Flooding and its consequences, apart from the health and life-threatening ones, could well have the effect, over time, of breaking the spirit of our small farmers particularly. In the instances of the hinterland communities, broken spirits can be life-threatening since critical questions exist as to whether, in the absence of some level of food-production of their own, some hinterland communities can depend entirely or even significantly on Georgetown to fill those gaps. Seasonal floods are not new to Guyana and whenever these come around the hype and the pontification as to what needs to be done to secure a comprehensive response is, all too frequently, more intense than the actual remedial action. What is perhaps even more absurd is that once the rains come and go, coastal dwellers, particularly, frequently revert quickly to the same environmental practices that will cause the next bout of flooding to be worse than the previous one.
We can do worse than accumulate a collection of the requisite skills (some of these might have to be imported) to tackle this long-standing and debilitating challenge. That is government’s responsibility. The cost, doubtless, will be significant but when one thinks of the consequences of the half measures that go nowhere in terms of remedy, it becomes clear that a comprehensive initiative that takes account of all of the social, environmental, human resource and engineering considerations that must go into such an initiative cannot be delayed forever.
One might add, of course, that an investment in saving lives as well as an agricultural sector that has served us well through generations is more than worth the spending of some of our oil and gas money…and this should not be something to be determined by government alone.
