After Cabinet update…
MINISTER of Agriculture, Mr. Robert Persaud, at their last Tuesday meeting, updated his Cabinet colleagues on the current El Niño phenomenon and its drought-like conditions.

This was disclosed, last Thursday, by Head of the Presidential Secretariat (HPS) Dr. Roger Luncheon at his post-Cabinet media briefing at Office of the President, Shiv Chanderpaul Drive, Georgetown.

He said Persaud spoke about the availability of irrigation water and its link to traditional crops and the non-traditional crop sector.

Luncheon said: “The situation has been worsening and the levels of potable water for plant and animal provision has fallen to the point where restrictions have had to be placed on the distribution.”

The HPS said, as a consequence, assistance has been resorted to, through mechanical pumping and, where the situation allows, the excavation of channels to take water to farmlands.

“This situation is expected to extend into the first quarter of 2010 and I would point out that it is not unique to Guyana,” Luncheon said, pointing to what is happening in neighbouring Venezuela, where similar conditions exist.

He said projections for the first quarter of 2010, and the phenomenon still being experienced in Guyana are sobering.

“The agricultural sector and its vulnerability – availability of fresh water for crops is known, and extraordinary efforts are being made now,” Luncheon stated.

He said some of the interventions being pursued include restriction of water from the conservancies and, where it is in good supply, to areas where it is not in so good supply.

“I suppose, as the conditions bite, those effects will have to be heightened, coming as they do with significant cost,” the HPS cautioned.

He added that “all of the interventions being made now would have to be looked on from the perspective of cost implications, but the agricultural sector and what is spawned from agro-industry, I think is too big to fail and to be allowed to easily succumb to the drought-like conditions created by the El Nino phenomenon.” (Priya Nauth)