Shal­iza?Has­sanali

To­day marks 21 days since agri­cul­tur­al farms in Plum Mi­tan have been un­der waist-high flood wa­ters.The wa­ter, which flood­ed 1,200 acres of cul­ti­vat­ed lands in the sleepy farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty fol­low­ing heavy rain­fall on No­vem­ber 10, has de­stroyed ap­prox­i­mate­ly $20 mil­lion worth of crops in var­i­ous stages of growth.In light of this, the farm­ers are urg­ing con­sumers to brace for high­er food prices for the up­com­ing Christ­mas.

The flood has dis­rupt­ed the lives of 175 farm­ers. On Thurs­day, pres­i­dent of the Plum Mi­tan/Biche Farm­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion Hakim Mowlah called for the farm­ing dis­trict to be de­clared a dis­as­ter zone by the Gov­ern­ment.He at­trib­uted the wide­spread del­uge to iron rail­ings be­ing placed at the end of the Main Line Riv­er, which has been trap­ping de­bris and lit­ter.Mowlah said fail­ure to dredge the three-mile long riv­er was an­oth­er con­tribut­ing fac­tor to the floods.

"When­ev­er the rain falls, the wa­ter from the riv­er has nowhere to go and would back up in our farms," Mowlah said.A tour of the area showed thou­sands of cu­cum­ber, plan­tain, pi­men­to, mel­on, rice, hot pep­per, corn, ochro and pump­kin plants, leaves yel­low and wilt­ed, were cov­ered in wa­ter reach­ing the waist and knees. Rot­ten crops which gave off an of­fen­sive smell were al­so seen float­ing on the wa­ter's sur­face.

Plum Mi­tan is the coun­try's sec­ond largest pro­duc­er of rice, wa­ter­mel­on, plan­tain and cu­cum­bers, the farm­ers said.Six pumps be­long­ing to the Min­istry of Food Pro­duc­tion which were strate­gi­cal­ly placed in Blocks One to Four have been work­ing around the clock to chan­nel the wa­ter out. But Mowlah said it would take an­oth­er two weeks for the vol­ume of wa­ter to sub­side.

De­clare Plum Mi­tana dis­as­ter zone

"We are ac­cus­tomed to the floods, but this is the worst we have seen in years. I think the Gov­ern­ment should de­clare the area a dis­as­ter zone be­cause of the mag­ni­tude of the sit­u­a­tion," Mowlah said.He said while the Gov­ern­ment was fo­cus­ing its at­ten­tion on the col­lapsed Man­zanil­la Road, the farm­ers' plights were be­ing side­lined.He said it takes months for farm­ers to re­ceive flood re­lief.

Many of the farm­ers com­plained that the com­pen­sa­tion they re­ceived last year from the Gov­ern­ment was a far cry from the ac­tu­al loss­es in­curred.Mowlah said in 2013 he re­ceived a mere $131 in com­pen­sa­tion for his wa­ter­logged field of pump­kins val­ued thou­sands of dol­lars. Mean­while, Farmer Bhim Ram­paul said farm­ers col­lect­ed flood re­lief for lands that were not even un­der cul­ti­va­tion.

"Some farm­ers were even paid two and three times for the loss of one crop," Ram­paul said.Still count­ing the loss­es at his five-acre plan­tain field, Prim­di­al Ram­ta­hal said Christ­mas looked bleak for the en­tire farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty.

'Dis­re­spect to farm­ers'

Cu­cum­ber farm­ers Bisoon­daye George and Sarindar Sa­roop, who es­ti­mat­ed their loss­es at $400,000, took jabs at Food Pro­duc­tion Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj for fail­ing to vis­it the flood prone dis­trict."This is dis­re­spect­ful to the farm­ers. The min­is­ter should have at least paid us a vis­it to see the dam­age done," Sa­roop said.Both men be­lieve that cu­cum­ber, which is cur­rent­ly be­ing re­tailed at $12 a pound, could in­crease to $16 for Christ­mas.

Oth­er crops that are like­ly to see a hike for the Yule­tide Sea­son the farm­ers pre­dict­ed are wa­ter­mel­on, toma­toes, ochro, hot pep­pers, pi­men­to, plan­tain, sweet pep­pers and dasheen bush.On Tues­day, Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la MP Collin Par­tap and Biche/Charu­ma coun­cil­lor Glen Ram held a meet­ing with the farm­ers promis­ing to ad­dress their con­cerns.

On Fri­day, Ma­haraj said a tech­ni­cal team from his min­istry, com­pris­ing en­gi­neers and agri­cul­tur­al of­fi­cers, has been work­ing to bring re­lief to the farm­ers.

Min­istry of Fi­nance looks at crop in­sur­ance

Ma­haraj said one of the so­lu­tions to the flood­ing lies with a crop in­sur­ance pro­pos­al, which is en­gag­ing the at­ten­tion of the Min­istry of Fi­nance.He said pre­mi­ums paid to­wards the in­sur­ance would have to come from both the farm­ers and Gov­ern­ment for it to work.

"It would be part­ly sub­sidised by the Gov­ern­ment. Right now we pay on av­er­age $10 mil­lion in flood re­lief an­nu­al­ly. We can con­tribute the $10 mil­lion to­wards an in­sur­ance firm, while the farm­ers pay a month­ly fee. It can be ben­e­fi­cial for the farm­ers. They might get more than what we pay," Ma­haraj said.Ma­haraj said his min­istry has stud­ied in­sur­ance mod­els from In­dia and Mex­i­co, where it has worked.

Na­tion­al Food­crop Farm­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion re­spond

Pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Food­crop Farm­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion (NF­FA) Ter­rence Hay­wood said he of­ten won­dered when the Gov­ern­ment would get things right with the agri­cul­ture sec­tor."Farm­ers are not a pri­or­i­ty in this coun­try. They are dis­re­spect­ed and dis­re­gard­ed." Hay­wood said for years the NF­FA have been urg­ing past and present gov­ern­ments to di­ver­si­fy the econ­o­my from oil and gas and fo­cus on build­ing the agri­cul­ture sec­tor to save the coun­try from an eco­nom­ic col­lapse.

"Now that oil prices are plum­met­ing and the coun­try stand to lose mil­lions or even bil­lions of dol­lars in rev­enue in 2015, the Gov­ern­ment still will not learn from their past mis­takes. Let them reap what they sow."

MORE IN­FO

Ma­haraj: Un­scrupu­lous farm­ers mak­ing false claims

Ma­haraj ex­plained there were un­scrupu­lous in­di­vid­u­als in the farm­ing in­dus­try."They may not be in the ma­jor­i­ty but they fab­ri­cate dam­age. They make false claims." Ma­haraj said this caus­es a de­lay with com­pen­sa­tion be­ing paid."Peo­ple are who not gen­uine cause the process to be de­layed. It forces the min­istry to scru­ti­nise all the claims. I would nev­er be able to sat­is­fy all farm­ers be­cause they would nev­er get 100 per cent flood re­lief."

Ma­haraj, how­ev­er, dis­agreed, that food prices will in­crease as a re­sult of the flood­ing.He said Plum Mi­tan was not a food bas­ket, but con­tributes to the coun­try's do­mes­tic sup­ply of com­modi­ties."There are ar­eas in pro­duc­tion not ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed. There would be a tem­po­rary hic­cup in pro­duc­tion and prices, but would not cause prices to es­ca­late."

With food prices al­ready soar­ing in the last few weeks, Ma­haraj said farm­ers have a ten­den­cy to plant crops that fetch the high­est prices."If some­thing is for $25 a pound, every­body wants to plant that. Now that toma­toes go­ing for $15 a pound, every­body wants to grow toma­toes. It is a tight rope we are walk­ing be­tween the con­sumers and farm­ers. The farm­ers want the high­est price and the con­sumers want the low­est."