NO flooding has been reported along the Pomeroon River despite heavy and consistent rainfall over the past days. One farmer, Mr. Ayube Khan, who is a member of the New Guyana Marketing Corporation Board and is based at Charity said the rain has not affected farms along the upper nor lower Pomeroon River communities, because the excess water in the river is drained quickly into the Atlantic Ocean.
He said farmers are, however, making use of the rainfall to cultivate more crops on their farms.
Khan said, every week, several tons of produce, including plantains, cassava, eddoes, dried and water coconuts are taken from along the Pomeroon River to the Charity Marketing Centre, from where they are transported by trucks and boats to Georgetown and the Caribbean.
Meanwhile, on the Essequibo Coast, young rice plants are blooming on thousands of acres under the current rainy weather conditions and some planters said the rainfall has helped them to prepare their fields for sowing.
Others who sowed their crops several weeks ago said their plants are benefitting from the rainfall and showing good signs of a bountiful harvest.
In the Cozier Agriculture Scheme, farms are also thriving with hundreds of acres of rice cultivation and the farmers report that they have enough water to irrigate their fields.
Meanwhile the Region Two (Pomeroon/Supenaam) Drainage and Irrigation (D&I) Department is continuing to pump water from Pomeroon River into the Tapakuma Lake to ensure that enough is retained in conservancies and canals to fully irrigate all fields during the growth of the current rice crop.
Recently, Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy and Minister within the Ministry, Mr. Alli Baksh visited the Dawa Pump Station to inspect pumps that were in full operation.
Minister Ramsammy remarked that the crop looks very promising and predicted a bountiful harvest.