Penal farmer warns of high produce prices after flooding

COUNTING their losses on Saturday in the aftermath of severe flooding earlier this week, farmers in the Penal/Debe area are predicting higher vegetable and fruit prices.

Farmer Vijay Ramsaroop said his one and a half acre of a variety of peppers and paw paw, submerged under four feet of water which is yet to completely recede.

He said fellow farmers who cultivate tomatoes, eddoes, sweet corn, patchoi among other crops at Rahamut Trace, have suffered similar losses.

Ramsaroop’s sweet, chilli, hot, pimento peppers and paw paw crops were damaged.

“We have no crops to reap. After being buried in four feet of flood waters, some of the crops are still standing, but they will wilt in a day or two. Some people may still want to reap what they can salvage, but I would not do that because we don’t know what diseases the water brought.”

Ramsaroop, 64, left his job as a taxi-driver during the pandemic and turned to farming, which he has been involved in for 50-plus years, full-time.

“I have been farming since I was a little boy, but I am getting discouraged. Every time it rains we get flooded out. For another year, I lost everything.”

What is more discouraging, he said, is that young people, who inherited land from their parents, after extensive, continuous losses, are also ready to call it a day.

“I am the oldest farmer here. The younger people are ready to give up, but there are no other jobs for them in this community.”

Ramsaroop is not taking too kindly to the Prime Minister’s warning not to price gouge as floodwaters devastated crops in many of the foodbaskets across the country. Most of his crops are sold to Namdevco and a smaller amount retailed.

Ramsaroop said it is not the farmers who price gouge, but the middlemen and vendors.

He said he has seen vendors split one bundle of greens (watercress) and bodi into two “thin, thin bundles” and sell it during shortages.

“People don’t know how hard farmers work to feed this nation. At my age, 64, you know how many spray cans I tote on my back and bend down to spray and cut the grass. But when we go to the market and we set our price, customers accuse us of trying to dig out their eyes. When we go to buy chemicals, farmers are turned away if you are $5 short.”

On compensation for who the Prime Minister says qualifies, Ramsaroop said the country could be spared millions annually in flood compensation if rivers are dredged and cleaned, bridges and access roads fixed and general maintenance of watercourses are sustained.

“We don’t want much. We just want good access roads, proper drainage. If the ministry clean the rivers, we good to go.

“The money we get cannot really compensate us for the total loss we suffer. "Remember we have to start back from scratch with cash from our own pockets. When you have to apply for compensation it takes sometimes eight months to over a year to get a small sum.”

He said if the Oropouche River was cleaned and dredged, flooding in that area could have been alleviated.

Admitting that the rainfall was unprecedented and “God’s work”, he still believes if works are carried out during the dry season part of the problem could be solved.

He said four months ago, before the rainy season started, he reported the collapse of two culverts which was preventing the free flow of water.

Ramsaroop said he was told the equipment to repair them was not working.

He called on the Ministry of Agriculture and Works and Transport and agencies responsible for the clearance of drains and watercourses to not only issue contracts, but oversee the work done.