Current rainfall impacting rice cultivation in Reg 6 – Armogan

The current persistent rainfall would impact only two of the three main rice-producing areas in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne), according to Region Six Chairman David Armogan, who also pointed out that one of the two other rice-producing areas is likely to suffer losses to both the first and second crops.
Region Six has about 65,000 acres of land under rice cultivation. Some 4000 acres are at Crabwood Creek and approximately 20,000 acres are at Black Bush Polder.
However, 28,000 acres of rice lands, most of which are situated between Eversham and Alness, are located along the front lands, and farmers who cultivate the front lands are likely to suffer losses to their spring crop, referred to as the first crop; and to the autumn crop, called the second crop. According to Armogan, those farmers should have completed harvesting the spring crop, but about 300 acres are still to be harvested.

“They are way too late, because by this time all of the rice should have been harvested and (they should have been) into the second crop; but, for the first crop, people have not completely harvested their rice as yet,” he said.
Those cultivating the front lands have said they had gone into the crop late, because they did not get water promptly. They depend on water coming through the Black Bush Polder (BBP), and must wait until the farmers in that area stop pumping water into their fields.
“Even though we tell them not to sow after a certain period, nobody bothers with us, because this is their living. If they don’t get their water in time, what invariably happens is that they will obviously sow outside of the regular recommended time… Now they are harvesting, when rain is falling heavily,” Armogan has pointed out.
“The problem is that the water for the front land areas, besides villages between Numbers 52 and 74, comes from Black Bush. So, when Black Bush is finished, then the front areas will get water. That is one of the big problems that we have. We have to be able to solve that problem; maybe put in more irrigation pumps so that the front lands can also get water in time, because there is no use telling people that you have to plant within a certain period and they don’t get the water,” the Regional Chairman explained.

Meanwhile, in Black Bush Polder, where already between 75 and 80 per cent of fields have been sown for the second crop, many farmers are likely to experience losses because of continuous rainfall, which has resulted in a rise in water levels.
Some of those farmers are blaming rice farmers in the Cookrite Savannah for releasing their excess water into the Black Bush Polder.
“The regulators that control water coming in from the Cookrite Savannahs into the Black Bush Polder area have all been closed, so there is no question of Cookrite Savannah water coming into Black Bush Polder, as used to happen before. We have taken out all of the wires, so that nobody can lift the doors.” Armogan noted.
At Crabwood Creek, about 50 per cent of the rice lands have been sown for the second crop, and according to the Regional Chairman, flooding has not affected that community.
“Because of the interventions that were made earlier, in terms of a new canal that was dug there at Crabwood Creek, they don’t have problems with flooding,” Armagon has said.