The hills were burn­ing at the same time in north and south Trinidad on April 8.

The on­ly dif­fer­ence is, the fire on Chan­cel­lor Hill, near the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo, con­sumed bush and a bam­boo patch, while the south fire at La Glo­ria Es­tate, New Grant, Table­land, de­stroyed ten acres of ful­ly-grown, flow­er­ing cit­rus trees.

It's sus­pect­ed the north fire was a bush fire. Pineap­ple farmer Ra­mash Ram­sumair be­lieves "hu­man hands" were re­spon­si­ble for his loss­es.

Here's Ram­sumair's own words:

"In the pho­to, you can see me point­ing to ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1,000 acres of aban­doned cit­rus in the La Glo­ria Es­tate that was giv­en to us to cul­ti­vate cit­rus. On­ly 18 of us signed leas­es for 25-acre plots in 2012, for which we were au­tho­rised to start. I am the on­ly farmer who went and in­vest­ed heav­i­ly try­ing to re­ha­bil­i­tate the ex­ist­ing cit­rus un­til we re­ceive cit­rus seedlings from the Min­istry of Food Pro­duc­tion, which was or­dered in 2012.

"As the pic­tures show, I in­vest­ed heav­i­ly in re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion in trac­tor­ing, brush­cut­ting, ex­ca­vat­ing, and us­ing in­ten­sive labour. A lot of fer­tilis­ers were al­so used in ap­prox­i­mate­ly 15 acres, of which ap­prox­i­mate­ly ten acres of ful­ly-grown cit­rus trees ready to flower were flat­tened by hu­man hands.

"All the rel­e­vant re­ports were made for which, as of to­day, on­ly lip-ser­vice as ac­tion was forth­com­ing. Ab­solute­ly no one or agency has seen it im­por­tant to vis­it. The irony is that Chan­cel­lor Hill was burnt last week and every­one knew, but when farm­ers risk their lives for food se­cu­ri­ty, no­body knows. The irony con­tin­ues: are not farm­ers like my­self sup­ply­ing food for Chan­cel­lor Hill? I just lost more than $100,000, but we all owe it to find so­lu­tions so that it must nev­er hap­pen again. The rur­al ne­glect con­tin­ues."

He said the irony of his sit­u­a­tion was that the Princes Town Fire Sta­tion is on­ly about six miles away. No fire ap­pli­ance re­spond­ed to his calls.

Ram­sumair, of George Vil­lage, Table­land, is chair­man of the Table­land Pineap­ple Farm­ers As­so­ci­a­tion. He grew up sur­round­ed by co­coa and sug­ar­cane es­tates. To­day, he al­so plants pom­me­cythere and some short crops.

Ram­sumair, whose fa­ther worked at Ca­roni (1975) Ltd, said the 18 farm­ers who signed pro­ba­tion­ary tem­po­rary three-year leas­es in 2012 have be­tween 500 and 1,000 acres un­der cul­ti­va­tion. One con­di­tion of the lease is that 75 per cent of the land should be cul­ti­va­tion with­in three years.

He said the plan is to cul­ti­vate the land with cit­rus, of which there's a scarci­ty in the mar­ket nowa­days, but farm­ers could plant short crops with­in the three years to gen­er­ate cash as cit­rus takes about four years to ma­ture and is a "cash-in­ten­sive pro­gramme." San­dra Chouthi

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