How Farmers of Laluni Creek Are Working Together to Overcome Hurdles

PAST Soesdyke and through the village of Kuru Kururu is the community of Laluni; and over the Laluni Creek, there is a small community of farmers on a piece of land almost completely surrounded by water. Just about forty people occupy this area of Laluni, known as or referred to as ‘Laluni Creek’. This community within a community is home to just a few families who travel daily by boat, in and out of the area. A quaint, peaceful farming settlement, the people of Laluni Creek are as resilient as the crops they produce — adapting and modifying their farming tactics in an effort to combat diseases and enhance crop production. But for a community on the water, their biggest challenge is Guyana’s rainy season.

This week, Pepperpot Magazine ventured to the growing community of Laluni, where farmers like Maurice Ferreira are working together with government entities, such as NAREI, to overcome some of agriculture’s biggest hurdles. Although today the community is known for its cherries and cash crops such as ground provisions and pepper, Laluni was founded on coffee. In fact, the community was once home to one of Guyana’s largest coffee plantations. As successful as coffee was, it yielded just one or two harvests a year, leaving many workers jobless during the off-season. Maurice Ferriera’s father was among the hundreds of plantation farmers left without work. But unlike most, who left the area, Maurice’s father stayed, starting anew with a small plot in Laluni Creek.

Now, more than fifty years later, Maurice and his three sons carry on that legacy, with vast acres of land covered in coconuts, pepper, citrus, cherries and other crops. Recounting how he and his family came to call Laluni home, Maurice shared, “I came to Laluni when it was a coffee plantation, that was in 1965. My father opened this farm in the same year,” he said. While he left the community for a few years, Maurice returned to take up the mantle and began farming independently. He added, “The coffee plantation has one crop a year, so when that was finished it was every man gone; searching for employment. But then after that, they started to plant two crops per year. So I came back, I left here in ‘69 and came back in ‘75. In 1980 I started farming here. But my old man was already farming, I just continued it.”

Today, working on many of the same traditional practices as his father did, Maurice and three of his four sons manage the farm and the legacy it holds. The family works collaboratively to get their crops from farm to market. While a now 74-year-old Maurice visits the farm daily to ensure crop quality and safety, his sons handle the heavy logistics of getting their crops to the market. Outlining a day on the Ferriera farm, Maurice shared, “Two of the boys, my sons, go to the market. After we load up in the farm, we bring it to the boat to cross the creek. Then one of my sons goes to the market in the afternoon, around 3, and comes back around 9. The other one goes out for 11 o’clock and comes back at 2 in the morning,” he said. Despite this well-oiled routine, Maurice explained that the market remains competitive, with farmers from all over Guyana coming out. That’s why Maurice and his sons push relentlessly for the highest quality crops — not just to rise above the competition, but to set the standard. Because in farming, quality isn’t given; it’s earned through hard work.

As farmland expands and new farming practices become the norm, new threats continue to emerge, while old threats become increasingly difficult to face. This is, at least, how Maurice feels. Talking to Pepperpot Magazine on his farm, he stated that some challenges in farming remain constant, and the only course of action for some threats is preventive measures. There are only a handful of things that farmers can do during the rainy season, says Maurice, with timing being a defining factor between a good yield and hundreds of damaged crops. “Well, the most we do to prepare for the rainy season is clean the drains around and in the farm.” However, certain aspects of drainage and irrigation necessitate government intervention. “The government cleaned the drain a while ago and this year the flooding is not so bad. A while ago we had a flood and we were in inches of water, water coming into our houses, but not this year,” Maurice said.

One of the growing challenges facing farmers — not just in Laluni but throughout Guyana — is crop disease. Maurice and several of his fellow farmers pointed to peppers, which are currently battling a disease that causes black spots and leads to significant losses in both yield and income. Maurice and his sons are working to ensure that it does not cause too much damage, however, by ensuring plants are healthy at the seedling stage. “I try to control the disease affecting the peppers. But you have to control it from the baby stage. As soon as you see your farm get that disease, don’t mind where you spray it, don’t mind what you put on it — nothing brings it back,” he said.

However, like the rest of Guyana, work is continuously being done to ensure not just survival, but growth. Farmers and community leaders in Laluni are collaborating with agricultural government entities to resolve and find solutions for their needs. Work within the community is also making a great impact, with the community council already allocating funds aimed at helping farmers with equipment, machinery and fertilisers. Laluni and its farmers emphasise that developing the agricultural sector requires much more work, dedication, and collaboration than meets the eye — and the quiet work being done throughout Guyana, in communities like Laluni, makes all the difference.