MINISTER of Agriculture, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy said, last Saturday, that the rice crop currently under cultivation on Essequibo Coast shows good signs for a bumper harvest in February/March 2012. Ramsammy, who visited and inspected the Dawa Pump Station at Tapakuma, said his ministry wants to ensure that the fields are well irrigated.
He said all four pumps at Dawa are in full operation to deliver water from the Pomeroon River into the Tapakuma Lake that flows into the irrigation system, so all of the 32,500 acres being cultivated can be adequately served.
Ramsammy said it costs the Government some $1.7M per week to operate the pumps so the rice crop can be successful.
He said the pumps at Dawa had to be put into operation because, during the past seven months, there was reduced rainfall and not enough water was in the conservancies and the main canal to fully irrigate the crop.
The Dawa Pump Station, which was officially commissioned on November 30, 1963, by Governor, Sir Ralph Grey and handed over to then Premier, Dr. Cheddi Jagan on behalf of the Guyanese people, was recently rehabilitated by the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government with funding from the European Union (EU).
Ramsammy said the project was one of the late Dr. Jagan’s priority projects to make more lands available for rice planting on Essequibo Coast and all Guyanese should have appreciation for such massive structures.
Some 25,928 acres, of the targeted 32.500 acres in Region Two, have already been sown.