Latest update November 26th, 2024 1:00 AM
Flooded out and battling land-grabbers, woman farmer determined to survive
– “I’m not giving up,” says Vilma Tyson
By Enid Joaquin
As we celebrate agriculture month, we can’t help but applaud the men and women that work the soil so that the rest of us may eat.
But how many of us understand the challenges and sometimes heartaches that some of these farmers face in their quest for a good life?
Quite a few of them throw in the towel and seek less arduous occupations.
But for people like Vilma Tyson, giving up is not an option.
“This is my life-I’m not giving up! Tyson says emphatically.
Many of us would find such perseverance hard to understand, especially after hearing Vilma’s story.
I was totally flabbergasted when I saw what this woman’s once-flourishing farm of myriad crops had been reduced to.
Tyson is well known in Linden as one of the most prominent and prolific female farmers around; and she was able to acquire that status even as a single mother of three children.
It was just four years ago that this single parent had graced the front page of this publication, proudly surrounded by the fruits of her labor.
Mrs. Tyson in her nursery
Vilma Tyson with some of her produce
Today, she is surrounded by bushes, as the nearby jungle threatens to obliterate all that she has nurtured over the years.
Most of her orange trees are dead or dying, and even the hardy coconut trees are struggling to survive, as they battle with the encroaching jungle for sunlight.
But Tyson is fighting for her livelihood, and has even started to replant some oranges. She is also fighting hard to save some soursop plants.
However “it is not easy,” she asserts.
Tyson said that most of her crops are dying, because her farm is constantly under water.
“Right now this place is a virtual swamp, so everything is dying out. The only thing that flourishing are the weeds. The place is like a jungle.”
The woman said that she is particularly frustrated because she has spent a lot of money on drainage.
“A couple years ago I had three interlocking drains dug; they run from the road to the river. I had to pay $100, 000 for each one, so in all I paid $300,000. But now one of my neighbours who also farms, instead of also digging drains, they just dig a little outlet into my drain, and my drain cannot hold the excess water, so my farm is flooding- it constantly under water. The water coming from all over and flooding out my farm.”
Only grass on this once fertile farm
Not only has Tyson lost most of her orange trees, but an entire crop of Irish potatoes.
Because of the waterlogged state of the farm, she also can no longer farm cash crops such as bolangers, pak choi and bora.
She admitted that she was heartbroken over the loss of the potatoes as she had travelled to Jamaica, to study the process of growing the crop. She had plunged headlong into cultivation upon her return.
Tyson has been farming for most of her life, even while employed in the clerical sector by the state and attending the University of Guyana.
She however started out as a commercial farmer shortly after retiring from the Guyana Revenue Authority in 2005.
Her first move was to join the Region 10 Farmers Association, which afforded opportunities to attend workshops in Grenada and elsewhere.
She had pointed out in an earlier interview, that except for two instances where she was granted land clearing assistance from LEAP, she did not seek funding from any financial institution.
These days, apart from the issue of a water logged farm, Tyson is also fighting valiantly to hold onto her farmland, which she claims some persons seem bent on coveting. It is for these reasons that Tyson is demanding that the relevant authorities look into her plight.
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