Latest update March 29th, 2025 5:38 AM
Months of flooding leaves farming community in distress
By Tiffanne Ramphal
With executives of the opposition Alliance For Change (AFC) taking the opportunity yesterday to venture into the Coverden, East Bank Demerara community, residents seized the moment to air their concerns about the anguish they are suffering as a result of the deplorable drainage system existing in the community.
AFC Executive Member, Trevor Williams, speaking to members of the media
It was reported by the residents that with the undertaking of a revetment project initiated by the Ministry of Public Works to reface an eroded culvert in the area, the backlands of the community are being severely flooded.
The project reportedly began in January this year and was slated to be completed three months later. However, with the project already in its eighth month, works are deemed far from completion.
According to chairman of the Coverden Farmers’ Committee, William Thomas, with the ongoing construction works to the existing culvert, the engineers blocked the main canal that is draining the village, without instituting alternative tracks for the water to go out. As a result, with the water remaining stagnant on the community’s farmlands, cultivated crops are either destroyed or washed away, sending the farmers into distress, since they depend primarily on their produce to bring in much needed finances.
It was estimated that depending on the crop cultivated, each farmer has been incurring losses on a weekly basis of up to $100,000.
Raul Clarke, one of the farmers, lamented that with the blockage in the canal, his nine acres of farmlands are flooded out.
“I lost more than 800 plantain, pumpkin… coconut float away from where you plant it because the water come up,” he said.
Clarke informed that of the 27 bunches of plantains that he reaps on a weekly basis, he currently has not been able to reap one.
“I suffering dread right now. Behind there is like a graveyard right now, ‘cause the water come and deh on the land and flood out everything and kill everything. So I suffering right now… I ain’t even know what to do,” Clarke said. “Every single week I losing $50,000 or more.”
Judy Thomas, another grieving farmer, related that with the flooding caused by the blockage of the trench, scores of the crops are killed while those that have survived are not of the previous high quality.
She said that to keep from incurring even more losses, she took it upon herself to create ‘make-do’ drains in order to keep her crops from being submerged in floodwaters.
Executive member of the AFC, Trevor Williams, highlighted during the outreach, that farming is the primary economic activity of poor people. He said that with the community having at their disposal lands which can be used by the residents to make a living, it is a worry that at the moment the lands cannot be used for their intended purpose.
The rehabilitative works to the culvert ongoing on the Coverden Public Road
“If you have land and you can’t farm on it, where do you work? And where do you get income from?” he asked.
Williams said that with the highlighting of the issues, he hopes that those in authority will be moved to make changes in order to provide some relief to the Coverden community. He added that while it is commendable that the government is expending effort in certain areas, it is counter-productive that “by fixing one problem they are creating another.”
Referring to the unreliable drainage system and the “little or no consultations with residents in the community,” he said that he hopes the comments and outbursts coming from the residents will serve to signal to the authorities that “people are basically fed up with substandard work.”
“We continue to stand up with them and advocate on their behalf and hope that those in authority will pay keen attention and that the residents will see some fundamental changes start to take place to better their lives.”
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