WE continue to face the hardships due to the El Nino whilst our friends in the United States of America got some rains very recently and they are still trying to recover from that situation. The weather these days are unpredictable and are not only affecting us but countries internationally. The El Nino situation is really having an effect on us in Guyana. The loss of crops, both rice and traditional cash crops, livestock (Cattle, sheep etc) ; will have a serious economic impact on our economy. This in some way will also affect our international markets for these commodities. But I hope that the work of the relevant agencies responsible for these respective areas vis-à-vis marketing, production, etc, is planning ahead.

The current conditions have gone beyond normal and no rainfall has been recorded in some areas. The Government of Guyana has constructed a state of the art radar tower to predict prevailing patterns but from the inception to now, the only patterns they can predict are dry conditions. I guess the professionals monitoring this radar must be looking for rains so that they can gain some experience monitoring rainfall and not just sunshine.

I also recognize the many outreaches by senior agriculturists within the system and I am happy to say that during their visit to our area on the Essequibo Coast, many problems that were raised were resolved on site and I must applaud the team for their prompt and immediate response for those problems that could not have been resolved on site.

I do hope we get the rains soon and that too, when it does come, I pray to God that it doesn’t bring with it more catastrophes (La Nina) to continue affecting the hard work of the farmers on this land.