Dear Editor,
Farmers and sugar workers have long been alienated, marginalized and increasingly becoming impoverished. The $250K being offered to workers who were not rehired at GuySuCo is welcomed and deserving. Workers who have not been re-hired full time and or permanently or those who are not in a high income bracket, should also receive some form of “severance payment”. All sugar workers suffered tremendously over the last six years. The proposed $250K for the affected workers is only a short-term relief that will only hold them over for a few months. They have been out of work for over four years with no governmental assistance. They have accrued huge debts and stress over that period and the $250K will quickly disappear to meet financial obligations and medical expenses. Cost of living is extremely high in that some $25K is needed weekly to furnish a home with mere basic goods, not inclusive of cost of utilities. After a couple months, the $250K will disappear. Instead of a cash grant to appease them for the short term, why not find a permanent solution to their predicament?
The severed sugar workers (and even small-scale cash crop farmers) need a long-term solution to their unemployment problem, rather than government handouts and hampers. They have shown to be very successful at cultivation of various cash crops and kitchen gardening. Why not give the sugar workers the land from which they can earn a decent living in growing cash crops? This would relieve the state from having to provide financial assistance to the affected workers. Since the closure of Wales, our party has called on the government to give workers the land to grow crops, so that they may make a living. When the other three estates were closed, the URP also called on the government to distribute the land to the workers. The proposed plan to give GuySuCo land to Middle Easterners, as suggested in the newspapers and social media, is a terrible idea. The navel strings of the ancestors of the sugar workers are buried on the land. They have attachment to the land. They have worked the land for many decades. Their life is tied to the land. Their culture is in the land. The land belongs to them, not Middle Easterners who did not fight the colonial masters and the dictatorship and who have no expertise in
farming or a culture of growing food or working on land. Instead of the Middle Easterners benefiting from the patrimony of the nation’s land, Guyanese must be the beneficiaries, first and foremost. Why bypass the sugar workers in favor of foreigners?
Why not lease the land in parcels to the workers and let them form their own cooperatives or partnerships with government providing technical and scientific assistance? With the leases, the famers can secure loans to transform the land into food production. The farmers can cultivate their own crops that have international market. Government can ensconce NARI to provide technical and supportive services to the former sugar workers, who are now farmers. Instead of giving the land to the Middle Easterners, these foreigners can be encouraged to set up an agri bank to provide loans to farmers to grow food. The Guyanese farmers should be in the drivers’ seat when it comes to farming and owning or inheriting estate land. Even if the land is given to the Middle Easterners, they would need Guyanese to cultivate the land unless their plan is to transform the land into housing. Agriculture land should not be used for housing and even worse to be given to foreigners, when local people can use the land to feed the nation, the region, and export to the Diaspora in the World. Why not give the land to Guyanese to become successful farmers?
Sincerely,
Dr. Vishnu Bandhu
