Prolonged floodwaters at Mibicuri affecting cattle, cash crop farmers

Prolonged flooding at Mibicuri in the Black Bush Polder, Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) is having a negative effect on both cattle and cash crop farmers.
The Polder has been inundated for the past week.
Heavy rainfall last week caused extensive flooding in the Polder. Farms are no longer productive, in fact, many residents who are involved in small-scale farming have given up their means of a livelihood.

One resident, Bibi Nazima, said that poor drainage has caused the current flooding at Mibicuri.
“You see if the channel open the water will get to go away, and you wouldn’t get flooding in Black Bush but when the channel block up, you gotta expect the flood. You can’t plant garden and that is what we depend on for a daily bread. In Black Bush, we don’t have employment; it is just a lil bit rice and garden [cash crop]. Now when you can’t plant the garden and the rice taking about four months to cut, what will we eat? How we would live? The children have to be sent to school,” the woman told Guyana Times.
According to Nazima, floodwaters were seen three weeks ago but over the past two weeks, it worsened.
The canal, which drains the Polder to the Eversham outfall channel, is clogged. In fact, vegetation covers the entire canal.
Water levels in other parts of the Polder remain high as there is no way for it to be released.
Indrawattie Rooplall, a poultry and cash crop farmer, has lost all of her crops and many of her livestock have been affected by the floodwaters.
“The water raise Saturday night and I had twenty-seven fowl hens and all dead. Six ducks dead; a drake and five hens,” she related.
Rooplall said she recently bought twenty-one chickens, costing $10,000, and only seven remain, the others died as a result of the floodwaters.
“The sheep drop and the baby died. The goat drop and the baby died; this water too much and on to now it not moving,” she lamented.
The current situation at Mibicuri has resulted in many residents migrating, leaving their houses abandoned.
Meanwhile, a further downpour on Saturday afternoon sent the water levels even higher.
This flooding comes just months after the Polders of Johanna and Yakusari were inundated after hours of heavy rainfall back in May.
The floods lasted some two weeks, threatening the lives of residents and farmers as they struggled against the flooded waters and health hazards.
Residents had blamed the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA), saying that the Yakusari Main Drainage Canal, which also drains the Polder of Johanna, has not been cleaned for the year. The NDIA had responsibility for cleaning the canal.
In addition to the heavy overgrowth in the canal, the outfall channel was also blocked and there was limited access at the sluice which was also silted.