Con­struc­tion of the pro­posed mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way ex­ten­sion to San­gre Grande by the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (NID­CO) is not sit­ting well with some Waller­field farm­ers who will have to find land to con­tin­ue their liveli­hood when they are giv­en no­tices to leave.

More than 50 farm­ers and home­own­ers will have to be re­moved to make way for the high­way.

The farm­ers, who said the Gov­ern­ment was giv­ing them a raw deal as they are now forced to hunt for al­ter­na­tive ac­com­mo­da­tion, be­lieve it is a to­tal dis­re­spect to their pro­fes­sion.

At a meet­ing with res­i­dents and farm­ers late last year, a pam­phlet bear­ing a map and de­tails of the new route was cir­cu­lat­ed by NID­CO.

The project in­volves sev­er­al pack­ages which will be done in phas­es—work starts this month and is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed by 2025.

Phase one is a 14-kilo­me­tre sec­tion of the high­way which is ful­ly de­signed. It starts with an in­ter­change at Cu­mu­to Road and ends with an­oth­er in­ter­change at the To­co Main Road. There would al­so be the con­struc­tion of an over­pass over the East­ern Main Road in San­gre Grande.

Phase one con­sists of a 5,000-me­tre seg­ment from Cu­mu­to to San­gre Grande run­ning in a west to east di­rec­tion—it is ap­prox­i­mate­ly 120 me­tres south of and runs par­al­lel to the bound­ary of the en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly sen­si­tive Aripo Sa­van­nas, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 300 me­tres east of Cu­mu­to Road and 600 me­tres west of Guaico Trace, San­gre Grande.

A new four-lane dual car­riage­way from the ex­ist­ing in­ter­sec­tion of the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way and Cu­mu­to Road will be built and sev­er­al riv­er cross­ings and box cul­verts will al­so be con­struct­ed.

Farm­ers have no say—Bowen

Live­stock farmer Wayne Bowen said they were told by NID­CO that Gov­ern­ment need­ed their lands for the mega project.

An ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber of the Waller­field Farm­ers’ and Al­lied Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion, Bowen said an as­sess­ment was yet to be done on their land.

He said plans were be­ing made with­out the farm­ers' in­volve­ment or hav­ing a say.

"They do­ing what they have to do and then com­ing to talk to us. There has been no con­sul­ta­tion. We were told af­ter an as­sess­ment is made by the Gov­ern­ment we would be paid for our prop­er­ties and we have to move out. They are not go­ing to re­lo­cate us.

"So, I have to find land to con­tin­ue my farm. I am not in agree­ment with this.

"Why they can’t find a place for us?"

The farm­ers have been earn­ing their liveli­hood on agri­cul­tur­al lands leased to them by the State for decades.

He said dozens of farm­ers' lands in­clud­ing some homes are in the di­rect path of the high­way and they would have to move out.

Bowen said an in­ter­change will be built on Nicaragua Road where he rears live­stock on his eight-acre par­cel of land.

"Don't tell me you de­vel­op­ing the coun­try and I am go­ing to be left be­hind. At the end of the day, when they build this high­way all the rich folks will come around and buy up all the land and they will ben­e­fit.

"No­body is go­ing to push noth­ing down my throat be­cause I will rebel. If they deal with me fair­ly, I am the most peace­ful and lov­ing per­son. But don’t come and tell me I have to move and I had to hunt for a new place. That is a recipe for stress and peo­ple to lose their cool."

Bowen said he will not let the Gov­ern­ment "rail­road" him.

He said if the Gov­ern­ment need­ed his land, they would have to find al­ter­na­tive ac­com­mo­da­tion for him.

Bowen gave up his sec­ondary school ed­u­ca­tion to pur­sue farm­ing which he has been do­ing for 51 years.

"Rear­ing live­stock is all I know. A man my age would have to be run­ning around like a head­less chick­en to lo­cate a place. Nah man...We are wait­ing for the next step."

Bowen said he had sug­gest­ed an­oth­er route which NID­CO could have used to avoid dis­rupt­ing the farm­ers’ lives, but his con­sid­er­a­tion was ig­nored.

'Noth­ing should stand in the way of progress'

Live­stock farmer David El­lis, how­ev­er, shared a dif­fer­ent view, stat­ing that farm­ers should not stand in the way of progress.

"50 peo­ple can­not hold back 50,000 peo­ple. I am try­ing to en­cour­age farm­ers not to protest or re­sist but to try and get the best val­u­a­tion and pack­age pos­si­ble to have an easy tran­si­tion."

El­lis said they heard Gov­ern­ment will give them a list of recog­nised val­u­a­tors to have their prop­er­ties eval­u­at­ed.

"That is why I in­tend to get an in­de­pen­dent val­u­a­tor to en­sure what is giv­en to me is eq­ui­table and fair. I am try­ing my best to en­cour­age the farm­ers to look at it from a pos­i­tive stand­point. It is gov­ern­ment's land."

While some farm­ers pre­ferred re­lo­ca­tion, El­lis said such a move can be un­fair to an in­di­vid­ual.

"The Gov­ern­ment can shift you to an area you do not like or where it floods. To me, it is bet­ter you find your own place.”

In light of the new de­vel­op­ment, El­lis said a small group of farm­ers have since re­tained the ser­vices of an at­tor­ney who has been ad­vis­ing them.

"We don't know when we will be giv­en no­tices. Based on feed­back, it is sup­posed to be served some­where near the end of Feb­ru­ary to March."

He es­ti­mat­ed that rough­ly 50 farms and house­holds in Waller­field will be af­fect­ed.

"I per­son­al­ly hope they come for the land be­cause farm­ing in Trinidad is a strug­gle."

El­lis has been oc­cu­py­ing a 13-acre par­cel for years

The land, he in­sist­ed, is not suit­ed for cul­ti­vat­ing crops.

'It's to­tal­ly un­fair'

The as­so­ci­a­tion’s pres­i­dent, Lisa Perez, who rep­re­sents 500 farm­ers, sees the move by NID­CO as to­tal­ly un­fair.

Perez said the farm­ers were hop­ing for a con­sul­ta­tion with NID­CO which they are yet to see.

"We had a meet­ing in Coryal which was out of the way for the farm­ers. Many could not at­tend. All the ques­tions we put to NID­CO they did not an­swer."

She said she in­tends to hold a meet­ing soon with the farm­ers to de­ter­mine how many will be ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed be­cause the num­bers keep go­ing up.

"There are not on­ly farm­ers along the Cu­mu­to Road who will have to move out. Yes­ter­day, we heard oth­er farm­ers along the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way go­ing in­to Block Three as well as some farm­ers on Ja­cob Hill will be af­fect­ed al­so."

Perez said the fact that they have to find al­ter­na­tive ac­com­mo­da­tion meant they will be fight­ing up on their own to con­tin­ue their trade.

"The mar­ket val­ue of prop­er­ties to­day is above $1 mil­lion. I don’t know if we will be ad­e­quate­ly com­pen­sat­ed. That is my con­cern. I think it is dis­re­spect. They dis­re­spect­ed us. Like every­thing else, it's di­vide and con­quer. I think they are play­ing on that be­cause farm­ers don’t un­der­stand the mar­ket val­ue of prop­er­ties. I think they want to take ad­van­tage of them. Of course, I am dis­sat­is­fied."

Sinanan: EMA will have a con­sul­ta­tion with farm­ers

Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan, un­der whose purview NID­CO falls, told Guardian Me­dia the Gov­ern­ment would re­quire some lands for the con­struc­tion of the high­way.

"That is just part of the process. A val­ue on the land will be de­ter­mined on the land ac­quired and eq­ui­table com­pen­sa­tion will be hand­ed out. At the end of the day, you can­not keep back the progress of a coun­try be­cause some­body may have sen­ti­men­tal ties to some­thing. If it is a farm and you make a liv­ing, you put in a claim for that. There is a val­ue to that."

Told that the farm­ers had iden­ti­fied an al­ter­na­tive route to pre­vent their lives from be­ing dis­rupt­ed, Sinanan said the route was not se­lect­ed by the min­istry but by ex­perts.

"As a mat­ter of fact, that route might have been cho­sen long be­fore I be­came a min­is­ter. The fi­nal route is cho­sen be­cause they would have tak­en every­body’s view in­to con­sid­er­a­tion. There has nev­er been a high­way built in Trinidad where there was wasn’t a protest or some­body tried to stop it or some­body thought it was not a good idea."

He said if you live in the East and try to go to San­gre Grande, "you will sell (your house) and move out by evening. If you don’t build that high­way, what will hap­pen five or ten years from now?"

Sinanan said the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty would have a con­sul­ta­tion with all the farm­ers.

"That hap­pens from time to time, you go back and change and tweak. The fi­nal lay­out would have tak­en every­thing in­to con­sid­er­a­tion," Sinanan said.