Rice farmers say allegation against them false

May 13, 2021 News

Cane Grove pasture flooding …

Kaieteur News – The Cane Grove rice farmers, who have been blamed by cattle farmers for blocking one of two kokers which resulted in severe flooding of their (cattle rearers’) pasture, are insisting that the allegation against them is false.
In fact, one of the rice farmers, Jerry Basdeo, during an interview with Kaieteur News yesterday regarded the allegation as “defamation of character.”
Some of the cattle farmers had recently accused Basdeo, his brother and father of blocking the koker in question with a piece of wood. “The problem is we have two kokers and a man name ‘Short Boy’ and his two sons, Jerry and Terry, block it with a two by four wood and that cause the savannah to flood out in Cane Grove,” one of the cattle farmers, Satram Baldeo, had told this publication.
But according to Basdeo, “there is no flooding, everything is working and no koker is damage.” He insisted that no one had placed any wood or anything for that matter to block the koker. He did however own up to always being a part of efforts to repair the kokers whenever anything went wrong.
The issue with the koker, Basdeo explained, is that the cattle farmers had wanted to remove it. He noted that when officers from the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) had met with them (both rice and cattle farmers) on a previous occasion, they were told that the structure cannot be removed because it would cause severe flooding to the area.
Commenting on the issue, Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha, had said that he has instructed an engineer to visit the area to look into the issue in order to see how it can be resolved.

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