Hope Estate farmers laud NDIA efforts as rice harvest begins

− farmers were not affected by May/June floods – Estate Manager

Rice and cash crop farmers of Hope Estate on the East Coast of Demerara (ECD) are in full praise for the Government’s interventions in the drainage and irrigation sector, which resulted in them realising bountiful harvest.
There are some 32 farmers who are cultivating close to 900 acres of rice at the estate.
Currently, harvesting of the second crop of 2021 is now underway, with at least one farmer saying that had it not been for the interventions of Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha, farmers in the scheme would have been counting their losses.
Gangaram Goberdan explained that, although many areas were recently flooded, the estate was not; and, as such, he attributed this to the work done by the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA).
General Manager of the estate, Ricky Roopchand, in an invited comment, gave an overview of the interventions made by Government in the past year, and their impact on the current rice crop.

“During the May/June flood, we have not experienced any losses in rice at Hope Estate; not even one acre of rice was lost. This was due to the functional D&I [drainage & irrigation] system that we now have, which was an intervention of the Minister. He had put some systems in place, and now (they are) bearing fruit. So, we were very fortunate here at Hope Estate to experience zero losses in rice.”
He said harvesting at Hope Estate commenced before the other rice-producing areas in Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica). In addition, he said, cash crop farmers at Hope Estate are happy at the current state of affairs obtaining at the Estate, where cash crop cultivation had previously been a nightmare.
“Under this Government, things change a lot; we even get tractor to use for our farming,” Roopchand said.
Meanwhile, Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha spoke of the various interventions made over the past year, and the visible impact of the Hope Canal in mitigating flooding in Region Four. He said this is the kind of result being sought for all the agriculture areas across the country.
“We have done a lot of D&I work there. Region Four did not have as much floods as the other regions, and this is as a result of the investment that we have made when we were in Government before. I am very elated to know that the President has said that we will build three other such canals in three other Regions — Three, Five and Six.”
Those canals, he noted, would play a major role in reducing flooding in flood-prone areas such as Black Bush Polder in Region Six (East Berbice/ Corentyne), the MMA Scheme in Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice), and Canals Polder in Region Three (Essequibo Islands/West Demerara).
He explained that the Ministry of Agriculture has been tasked with identifying the location and design for the canals. “Our engineers are working on the draft, so that I can submit it to the President.”
Noting that all the canals in Hope Estate have been desilted, Mustapha said excavators are working in several communities across the country in efforts to reduce the possibility of flooding during the next rainy season.