Region 5 farmers remain resolute against REO’s orders

Region Five farmers are reacting to a decision by Regional Executive Officer (REO) Ovid Morrison to have them removed from lands they have for years been occupying at Naarstigheid and Catherine’s Lust, West Coast Berbice.
Notices were placed at the entrances to their farms on October 27 last, denying the farmers access to their farms. The notices carried the telephone number of the REO as the contact person, but the farmers contend that the RDC was not privy to this development.
A notice placed in the newspaper by the REO on Wednesday gave some of the farmers until midnight on Friday to vacate the lands. This notice also indicates that the Police Divisional Commander has been informed of this development. The REO has since contracted an individual to have the farmers displaced. This contractor will not be paid until the farmers are moved.
Following this development, a delegation of 12 farmers met with the REO and was informed that they would each be given one acre of land. Each member of this 12-person delegation had earlier been sent notices by the REO to vacate the lands on which they were farming, but each has now been promised one acre of land, whereas the REO is deeming the other farmers who did not meet with him as not being interested in retaining lands for farming purposes.
Contending that they are not going to adhere to the REO’s notice, the affected farmers are calling on President David Granger to intervene in this matter. They say that despite being given notice, they are not removing from the land.
“This farming that we are doing is our daily livelihood; we depend on this for our support. If we don’t farm, where are we going to get money to buy food to eat and to send our kids to school? How are we going to pay our bills? We depend on this, and we are not going to move,” one farmer has said.
Another farmer, Mellissa Persaud, said the farmers have been on the land for seventeen years and have been depending on farming ever since. With children now being a part of the family, she explained, it is very inconsiderate of the REO to now ask them to vacate their farms.
Tara Singh said he has been a Bath Settlement farmer for the past twenty-four years, and since the coalition government took office, farmers are receiving no support, and are now being treated like aliens. “A few days ago we see the notice in the newspaper to evacuate the land, and then he (REO) tell we that he gon share the land and give (each person) one acre. If he do give one acre per each person, it will be unfair. We have more than an acre of fruit trees.”
The single parent noted that even with the current size of his farm he is finding it difficult to make ends meet. He displayed a notice from a financial institution from which he had taken a loan to invest in the farm and said, “The land was leased to the Regional Democratic Council. The REO don’t have the authority (to evict anybody from the land), he is just bullying his way. I am quite sure that the President and the Prime Minister know nothing about this. I would like them to look into this matter as early as possible.”
Also of concern to the farmers is the fact that none of the farmers at Hopetown, considered a stronghold of the Peoples National Congress (PNC) arm of the coalition, is being asked to vacate their farm lands.
One sentiment expressed by the farmers is that the Region Five Administration is an uncaring government which has no regard for the policies of President David Granger, who has been “preaching” the need to plant more food.
The total acreage under cultivation by the farmers who have been threatened with eviction from the land is 50 acres. They say they are now being told that it is a criminal offence to cultivate the land with food which is sold on the market. (Andrew Carmichael)