APNU+AFC’S TOTAL NEGLIGENCE – SUFFERING REGION 5 FARMERS THREATENED WITH POVERTY

Oct 29, 2019 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,

Just as the residents and farmers of Region 5 in the Dantzig-Columbia feared, the high tides this past week brought another round of flooding and more destruction of crops and loss of livestock. This is the latest round of flooding, that has become a fact of life for over a year now. Every high tide now brings new flooding and more agony for farmers and the residents between the Mahaica River and the Mahaicony River, stretching between Dantzig and Fairfield. Even as the threats intensify and reach crisis proportion, the project that started in 2014/2015 to construct new sea defense in the area is still stalled, nothing done since 2015. The most that the APNU+AFC government can speak of is they had mobilized BK, A&S and M&B Construction, but no meaningful work has been done.
As the new set of high tides come, fearful Region 5 farmers, especially those in the Dantzig-Columbia areas, including villages like Cottage, Broom Hall, are bracing for more agony. Even as these new floods bring more sufferings, the farmers are still suffering from the devastation of the last set of high tides several weeks ago. With 3,000 of acres (at least 300 acres of rice land) still inundated with salt water or cannot be used for another two years because of salt-water destruction from the last flood a few weeks ago, these new floods add to the devastation.
Crops, including rice and cash crops, and cattle and other livestock have been lost and more will now be lost. In addition, the new floods add to the threat that some of the salt-water-laden land will not be available for another two years because of the prolong salt-water inundation. As more than 150 farmers and their families suffer more salt water inundation this week, they are still waiting for government to demonstrate any meaningful concern. In the meanwhile, with the newest floods, there are more jeopardy for hundreds of other farmers and more than 15,000 acres inland.
The pleas of the farmers and their families have fallen on deaf ears. The advocacy of the regional Chairman and the RDC have been ignored. The PPP Presidential Candidate, Irfaan Ali and the PPP’s General Secretary and other leaders have visited and have urged government to help. But the government has been AWOL, MIA, missing in action. Except for some cursory interest, the problems these farmers faced have been mostly neglected by government officials. Noel Holder steers far away from these genuinely devastating problems farmers face. The illegal Minister of Infrastructure has been busy telling people about the many failures and the dozens of empty promises they have made to people. David Granger, Moses Nagamootoo and the rest of APNU+AFC show no sign they are even aware.
For the last year, high tide after high tide have caused major flooding in the Dantzig-Columbia area. More than a year ago, the Regional Chairman, Region 5 advised sea defense in the Ministry of Infrastructure that the sea defense structures in the area are in disrepair and, unless immediate remedial action are initiated, it will crumble. Just before local government elections in November 2018, residents and farmers from the area publicly expressed concern. Before that the Region 5 RDC, through its Chairman, appealed for help, cautioning that farmers would lose their livelihood if immediate action was not taken. The appeals from the residents, farmers, from the RDC and from the General Secretary and other leaders of the PPP went unheeded. The negligence now necessitate major investment in the sea defense for this area, an investment that appears far in the future, when it would be too late to prevent major poverty in this area and by which time, valuable arable land would be lost.
After the last set of flooding a few weeks ago, flooding that still persist for most of the areas, north of the Highway, the Ministry of Infrastructure, shamed into a late and feeble response, started to construct a temporary inland dam to bring some relief to residents from future inundation. The newest floods in the past few days have proven that this late, hasty and “unfit and improper” action can neither bring relief for the residents nor will it prevent further flooding for hundreds of acres of farmland north of the highway. In addition, farmlands inland, south of the highway, are also threatened because of salt-water encroachment into the inland canals.
Because of the porous, collapsing sea defense, salt water keeps encroaching into the canals, making its way into and affecting farmlands far inland. While about 3,000 acres of arable land north of the highway are directly affected by floodwaters every time high tides come, another 15,000 acres are threatened because this flood water enters and bring salt water into the Bellamy Canal which distributes it through the north-south drainage canals into farm areas far away from the sea defense. In addition, the salt-water spills from drainage structures into irrigation structures. The salt water does not only cause immediate losses of crops and livestock, affecting the earnings of families and threatening greater poverty in the area, but already close to 1,000 acres of land are not usable for the next two years and thousands more are threatened with being permanently lost for agriculture, unless, somebody does something. Sadly, APNU+AFC does not seem interested because they figure there is no vote to be earned.
This stretch of sea defense has been vulnerable for decades. Before 2015, the MMA, the NDIA and the Sea Defense Department in the Ministry of Infrastructure collaborated ensuring the integrity of the sea defense. The MMA, in collaboration with Sea Defense, for many years maintained the northern dam of the Bellamy Canal and, in 2013/2014, buttressed the dam between the Mahaicony River on the east and Springhall in the west. The Ministry of Agriculture’s Mangrove Extension Department expanded and strengthened mangrove defense between 2011 and 2015 and the Ministry of Works (Infrastructure) began building supplemental defense by armouring the sea defense dam with boulders. But since 2015, much of the efforts have stalled. The mangrove programme in this area was discontinued, the existing mangrove, in fact, appears to have been destroyed. The boulder armouring of the dam by Infrastructure stopped soon after the May 2015. The collaboration of the MMA, with NDIA and the Ministry of Infrastructure is now non-existent, leading to no maintenance of the Bellamy Canal dam.
This negligence and disinterest by APNU+AFC in the problems posed by the sea for farmers in the Dantzig-Columbia area is just the latest example of the disrespect APNU+AFC has shown for farmers and for agriculture since May 2015. More flooding are inevitable as the collapsing sea defense in the Dantzig-Columbia areas gets worse from APNU+AFC’s neglect and disinterest. Farmers’ losses are now moving from existing crops and livestock to permanent losses of their farmlands, losses of livelihoods and more people becoming impoverished. In the midst of this injustice, David Granger is now promising that agriculture is the future for Guyana. These empty, shameful promises fooled many people in 2015. In 2020, these empty promises have a light shining on them and no one will fall for the lies.

Dr. Leslie Ramsammy

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