RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Farm­ers in Low­er Bar­rack­pore have tak­en mat­ters in­to their own hands, em­bark­ing on the ar­du­ous task of paving the agri­cul­tur­al ac­cess roads them­selves to get prop­er ac­cess to their fields.

Frus­trat­ed by the lack of ac­tion from the Es­tate Man­age­ment and Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (EM­B­DC), the farm­ers say they are fed-up with trans­port­ing their goods us­ing wheel­bar­rows and bull carts.

Con­trac­tor Ren Gopiesingh, who op­er­ates a chick­en farm in Low­er Bar­rack­pore, has been ac­tive­ly in­volved in spear­head­ing the road-paving ini­tia­tive.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Gopiesingh said, “We have al­ready spent about $75,000 to pave this piece, and this is a project that we will con­tin­ue in oth­er ar­eas.” 

He em­pha­sised the need for col­lec­tive ef­fort, urg­ing oth­er con­trac­tors to join the cause and con­tribute to the road im­prove­ment ef­forts for the ben­e­fit of lo­cal farm­ers.

“We do not know whether we will have an­oth­er lock­down and we have to sup­port farm­ers so we can be­come self-suf­fi­cient with food pro­duc­tion,” Gopiesingh said.

He ex­pressed the farm­ers’ de­sire to open up their farms for ed­u­ca­tion­al pur­pos­es, en­vi­sion­ing schools us­ing the farm­lands to teach chil­dren about agri­cul­ture. 

“I want to bring stu­dents on my farm and show them how to do agri­cul­ture,” he added.

He ap­pealed to Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein to vis­it the re­gion and wit­ness the chal­lenges faced by the farm­ers first­hand.

“We want to work with the min­is­ter and help to con­tribute to build­ing the agri­cul­ture in­dus­try. These farm­ers have all come out to as­sist in prepar­ing the road. We want con­tri­bu­tions of as­phalt and oil sand,” Gopiesingh said.

High­light­ing the pre­car­i­ous con­di­tion of the road, Gopiesingh said flood­ing is al­so an is­sue in the rainy sea­son.

Even the slight­est rain­fall, caus­es wa­ter to stag­nate and dis­rupt ac­cess, he ex­plained. He un­der­lined the ur­gency of ad­dress­ing these is­sues, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en the re­cent in­creas­es in the costs of fer­tilis­ers and pes­ti­cides.

He al­so ex­pressed con­cern for farm­ers in Up­per Bar­rack­pore who face even more sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges.

“Over there peo­ple do not even have any road and they have to use the bull cart to bring out the crops,” he added.

 He stressed the im­por­tance of giv­ing a voice to these farm­ers and pro­vid­ing the nec­es­sary sup­port for their agri­cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ties.

Mean­while, farmer De­vanand Khan said many farm­ers faced a lack of wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty.

 “Apart from the bad road, there is no wa­ter or elec­tric­i­ty. We have to fill the wa­ter every day. If we can get a wa­ter con­nec­tion, we will be able to pro­duce more,” Khan ex­plained. He ex­pressed grat­i­tude for the as­sis­tance pro­vid­ed by Gopiesingh.

Ou­dit Gooray, an­oth­er farmer, echoed con­cerns about wa­ter scarci­ty hin­der­ing pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. 

“Wa­ter is an is­sue we have had from the be­gin­ning. We use what­ev­er lit­tle we have. Every day I bring a trip of wa­ter. We are in the dry sea­son now, and it is re­al­ly dif­fi­cult,” Gooray stat­ed, em­pha­sis­ing the ur­gent need for wa­ter in­fra­struc­ture in the farms.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein for com­ments on the sit­u­a­tion, but as of late yes­ter­day evening, there was no re­sponse.