– Minister Mustapha promises quick response to this, other concerns

By Naomi Parris
FARMERS on the Essequibo Islands of Hogg Island, Wakeenaam and Leguan will soon benefit from improved drainage and irrigation services, along with several other amenities to improve their farms.

This comes after the Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha, held several meetings with farmers in those areas.
During the meeting on Tuesday, several farmers raised concerns of drainage and irrigation, pest control, infrastructure, markets for produce and a need for heavy machinery in the area to conduct works that cannot be done manually.

Jennifer Sobers, who hails from Wakenaam, expressed her frustrations with a broken koker in her community.
“At present, the outfall is very bad and it needs to be desilted and the koker– it’s a old Dutch koker– it’s a sluice. Engineers had come earlier on but the door got so bad that it needs to be repaired and replaced right now,” the woman said.

She added that with the recent rainfall and the rainy seasons that is expected over the next few weeks, if not addressed quickly, residents in the area will see severe flooding.
Meanwhile, Joseph Jaman, a coconut farmer from the Wakenaam islands, complained bitterly about pest attacking his produce, “Cockles (beetles) are going and destroying the coconut crop,” the man said.

Jaman also complained about poor drainage and irrigation. “Right now, my pasture is under three feet water with my cattle and I’d like to get help from the government,” the farmer said.
Meanwhile, on Hogg Island, Benjamin Narinedott made a call for more kokers to be constructed in the southern half of the island.
He explained that an inadequate drainage and irrigation system has caused heavy flooding during spring tides.

“Right now, we don’t have a river defence dam and right now with this heavy spring tide, last month spring tide over tapping the whole place,” he said, adding: “We don’t have a koker at the canal, since the canal dig, they never place a koker there and place is flooding.”

Tom Singh, another farmer from the Wakenaam Island, said the island is currently in need of an excavator since the one that they have is in need of repairs.
“We need a new [excavator], the life span is almost done, and if we could get another excavator, it would help the agriculture area on this island.”
Meanwhile, on the Island of Leguan, cattle farmer, Mahendeanauth Rambajue, expressed his frustrations with the lack of access to water resources to rear his cattle.
“We need a pond, if you have to pay a private man, you have to pay $50,000, you have the NDIA [National Drainage and Irrigation Authority] on the island; we are willing to pay $20,000. Cattle farmers need things on this island,” he said.

Addressing the farmer’s concerns, the minister said the aim of the meetings is to build and maintain relationship with farmers.
The minister vowed to have the respective agencies, such as the NDIA, carry out needs assessments and revisit the areas to address the concerns that were raised in the meetings before the week is out.

Additionally, the minister told farmers that a few of the problem they once faced will be lessened as a number of changes in relation to the removal of value added tax (VAT) in the agriculture sector will make their lives easier.

“We have reduced land rentals to where it was in 2014, we have reduced the D&I charges, we have taken out the VAT on agriculture machinery and agriculture in- puts.”
Since his appointment, the minister and team have been working continuously to provide the best services they can to the farmers across Guyana.
“We are working comrade, rest assure, we will have more measures in place. We will have better conditions for the farmers and we will have more incentives in agriculture,” he said.