200 farmers ordered off farmlands, seek Govt’s intervention

Some 200 cash crop farmers are seeking Government’s intervention after they were ordered off a plot of State land they have been occupying since 1989 for agricultural purposes.

In a letter dispatched to Agriculture Minister Noel Holder, the farmers pleaded to keep the land since it is their only means of earning a livelihood and justified why it is in the country’s benefit for arrangements to be made for them to continue their cultivation.

Guyana Times understands that the cash crop farmers of Hopetown and Bath Settlement, in Berbice, have expended huge sums of money in cleaning, clearing and draining the 30 acres of land for over 27 years.

Some of the farmers are even living on the land.

They plant a wide variety of cash crops, including bananas, bora, lettuce, celery, eschallot, peppers, ochroes, among others while some are into aquaculture.

According to the correspondence, the farmers said the Regional Executive Officer (REO) of Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice) Ovid Morrisson placed notices in front their farms, warning them that all trespassers will be removed.

The farmers say the REO wants to use the land to embark on a mix-farm project. They explained in the letter that the Regional Democratic Council (RDC) had a 50-year lease on some 50 acres of land but never occupied it and so the MMA/ADA repossessed the land.

“The MMA/ADA were informed about our farming project and on several occasion assisted us with excavators to de-silt internal drainage and irrigation channels, they also on two occasions did occupational surveys and also gave some members letters of occupation to source help from funding agencies to enhance our farming activities, etc,” a section of the correspondence reads.

The farmers said they were also assisted by the Canadian Ambassador (CIDA Programme) and the Social Impact & Amelioration Programme (SIMAP)-IDB Funding.