Acres of rice being destroyed by cattle along Corentyne Coast

– Farmer calls for immediate intervention

Hundreds of acres of rice have been destroyed by cattle along the Corentyne Coast in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne), forcing rice farmers to spend sleepless nights keeping guard over their crops.
The most affected area is the Seaforth cultivation area, where some 5000 acres are under rice cultivation.
With new bridges being erected across the Seaforth and Fowler Canals at Number 58 Village as part of a network to link the Corentyne Highway with the Canje River, the animals are now getting easy access to the rice fields.
To facilitate construction of these bridges, contractors have removed about 1000 feet of the barbed wire fence which was erected to keep the cattle confined. With the barbed wire fencing being removed, the animals are now making their way to the cultivated area. The farmers are claiming that the animals damage about four times more rice plants than what they eat.
Harvesting is expected to commence in three weeks, but the farmers are worried that their losses might be in the millions. One rice farmer, Baidwattie Badree of Number 61 Village, who cultivates over 400 acres of rice, has said the animals have eaten and damaged about 80 acres.
“Every crop, we are getting the same problem over and over. Minister come and he keep meeting about the cows. There is no solution! It is the same problem: crop after crop, the cows keep damaging us,” she said.
She said she has erected fences around her crops, and placed gates that allow her workers access to the fields when needed, but the animals would break the gates and fence to get to greener pastures.
Anthony Persaud, who has 40 acres under cultivation, has said that between five and six acres have already been damaged.

“This is bearing rice that damage — what mash down and what they eat. They come all the time; I don’t know what to do. Up to last night, I sleep at the backdam to watchman the cattle from going into my rice. Me weary sleep in the backdam to watchman rice,” he said.
Gobindranauth Hemeshwarnauth, another farmer, who lives at Number 57 Village, has said he has 20 acres under cultivation. He says he depends solely on his small cultivation, but cattle have been feasting on his crops.
“Every day we have to be out here making a fence, chasing cows. We need the Government to intervene urgently. They need to have some rangers to monitor the fence,” he said.

Early in 2022, Government provided $14 million to assist with construction of a fence to keep the animals in the pasture, but the animals still find themselves in the rice fields. In October last year, Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha, while addressing the farmers, said the Agriculture and Local Government Ministries would be collaborating to establish a Ranger Squad that would operate in areas where rice is grown in close proximity to where animals are being reared. It was agreed that cattle farmers would have two persons on the squad of six, while rice farmers would also have two persons. The other two persons were to come from the Local Government Ministry.
That Ranger Squad is yet to be established.
The pasture has about 3000 head of cattle, with little or no attention given to them by their respective owners.
In fact, the rice farmers have claimed that many of these animal owners are resident overseas. When asked if many rice farmers are not themselves cattle owners, former Chairman of the 52/74 Water Users Association, Amad Rajab, explained that those rice farmers who own large numbers of cattle have leased their rice lands, and now reside overseas and earn an income from the rental of the rice land.
Rajab, who cultivates 180 acres of rice, has estimated his losses to cattle damage at four acres already. He said the fence which was erected by the Guyana Livestock Development Authority (GLDA) of the Agriculture Ministry has not been maintained.
“Nobody is taking care of the fence. So, the rice farmers, once in a while, come and they fix the areas where the cows cross from. Most of the cows that are destroying the crop belong to people living outside. We have pictures of the cows in the rice with the brands, and we can’t get hold of these people, and nobody is looking after these cows.”
This publication has seen pictures of animals branded with the mark KJ29 feeding in rice fields.
Following the 2020 floods, the Agriculture Ministry had put systems in place to save animals that were dying in flood waters in the savannahs. The savannahs were flooded with water from the Canje River, which was overflowing its banks as a result of continuous rainfall inland. After hundreds of those animals were brought to dry land, crop farmers started to complain, and scores of cattle and small animals were being taken to the pounds daily.
This forced the Government to close all pounds as the animal farmers appealed for intervention. The Home Affairs Ministry simultaneously revoked all stray catchers’ licences. (Andrew Carmichael)