Keep politics out of people’s livelihood

Nov 17, 2009 Letters

Dear Editor,
I have followed with interest your articles of the laser land levelling equipment. I did not pay much attention to the first article, as I thought that politics was being played out. But in your last article on the subject I am convinced that it is more ignorance than politics being played.
By displaying your ignorance of the subject, you have created a doubt in people’s mind who are not knowledge of this kind of equipment and in the mind of those who are knowledgeable of same you have definitely displayed total ignorance.
One of the most important requirements in maximizing your yield in paddy production is a levelled seed bed (rice field).
Farmers with small acreages have been able to achieve this by moving dirt from high spots in their field to the low spots and they have proven that a level surface can indeed produce high yields because many times it has been proven that only the smaller farmers achieve yields of 40 bags and above while the larger farmers have been producing on an average 30 bags per acre.
By not having a level field one can experience a different population level of the rice plant. It can encourage grass in the high areas and duckweeds in the lower areas, thus affecting yield and quality.
The grass areas attract paddy bugs which lead to lower yields and poorer quality of paddy resulting in variable grades from the same field. Also, because of lack of water in the higher areas this can lead to poorly matured plants resulting in immature grains.
As I mentioned, politics should be kept out of something as serious as this and if you wanted material to lambaste the government, if you had done your homework you would have found out that this kind of equipment is actually in the system and it is a waste of money to purchase this new set.
The Caribbean Rice Association of which I was the chairman had tried very unsuccessfully to obtain equipment from the MMA as part of our programme to enhance paddy yield was to use these equipment free of cost to the farmers for land levelling. We were told in no uncertain terms that we had to pay for these equipment as they were shown as assets in MMA accounts and will be sold to GuySuCo to be used in the Skeldon development.
From all indication the software equipment is lying in the stores of GuySuCo, while the hardware is rotting at the MMA compound at Onverwagt.
By criticising in the purchase of the equipment and displaying your ignorance you have definitely lost likely supporters. So please let us try to keep politics out of people’s livilhood.
Beni Sankar

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Keep politics out of people’s livelihood

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