Los Iros farmers want gov't help

THE magnitude 6.9 earthquake on Tuesday left about 40 farmers of the Los Iros Hillview Association counting their losses after it destroyed crops and cut off access roads to their agricultural produce.

When Newsday visited the area, near Erin, there were cracks as much as six feet wide and ten feet deep. One farmer, Nobbie Mathura, said when the ground opened, it completely swallowed two water-pumps and tools. Three of his pieces of equipment – an excavator, a basin plough and a disc banker– were parked in the yard of the family’s camp and dropped into the cracks.

"We want financial help from the Ministry of Agriculture or from the Prime Minister. We do not get any subsidies from the government, and this is our livelihood.

"We don’t have a clue how we are going to move the excavator. It is about $400,000 in losses we are facing for the crops alone," Mathura said.

Mathura, of San Francique in Penal, and his workers plant crops such as pimentos, hot peppers and pumpkins. He said all that is left of his two fishponds is slush. During the earthquake, water pitched into the air and landed in the newly formed cracks.

"When we left yesterday evening, we saw little cracks on the ground, and they were nothing to be worried about. We had thousands of tilapias and cascaduras. But all are gone. It would take us years to catch back ourselves with this disaster," Mathura said.

He and his wife Neisha sell their produce to supermarkets and at the Norris Deonarine Northern Wholesale Market at Macoya.

Looking at the damage, Mathura said it was a traumatic experience considering he returned yesterday morning to harvest some of the crops.

Another farmer, Varun Balsingh, said three of his ponds dried up in the aftermath of the quake.

"We as farmers cannot do this alone.

"To get to the crops, the roads must be fixed. The minister must come here and see what is going on.

"I lost an acre of sweet peppers. My brother Sunil lost two acres. We lost three big ponds.

"We want the government to give us something for our losses."

President of the association Reshinand Ramraj, also a farmer, said the earthquake was the worst natural disaster they have experienced.

"Some farmers cannot reach to their fields even by foot because of the large cracks. We need compensation, because farmers spend their own money and we have loans to pay. The farmers of Los Iros feed the nation. When all the floods come, we have crops on the hill."

Farmer Dhanraj Sagar said he uses his camp to host monthly farmers’ meeting, but owing to infrastructural damage, it is not safe. Additionally, his nearby pond, which is 60 by 100 feet, is now empty.

Staff from the Agriculture Ministry’s office at Point Fortin met with farmers yesterday to assess the damage. Representatives from the Siparia Regional Corporation were also there.