Finance Minister Colm Imbert announced in the 2021/2022 Budget that $1.249 billion was allocated to the Ministry of Agriculture, Lands and Fisheries, with a $300 million stimulus package as well as a proposed $75 million project to develop farming access roads in various farming areas throughout Trinidad.
An estimated $11 million has also been committed for the replacement in 2022 of the decades-old pumps as well as access road repairs in the Plum Mitan area.
As T&T is in the rainy season, Plum Mitan farmers are bracing for the very real threat of having their crops destroyed by floodwaters as occurred last year in August 2021 and years past.
Of the six pumps located at the two pump stations, only one refurbished pump is operational.
Plum Mitan farmers have a litany of agricultural challenges besides flooding. Land tenure is a perennial issue, while the Caltoo Road bridge that farmers and residents use to transport produce out of the Plum Mitan Lagoon is crumbling. River courses are choked with lily pads and require long-overdue dredging and desilting. They are also faced with deplorable access roads, lack of water for irrigation during the dry season, praedial larceny and pests and diseases attacking livestock and crops.
The mostly dirt roads filled with potholes were so rough in the area that even a tractor traversing Wade Road lost its cover panel.
Some of the roads were filled with fist-sized CRC stones or finer petron crushed stones allegedly by a contractor hired by the Ministry of Works and Transport (MOWT).
While being shown around the area by farmer Kumar Saroop on May 18, in his capable 4x4 pickup, even at a low speed we were bounced around and jolted in the cabin due to the adverse condition of the road.
A MOWT excavator which was initially used to dredge the river now lay abandoned and sunken in the middle of the Jagruma River, contributing to the blockage of the river flow.
Potholes in an access road in Plum Mitan.
Charles Kong Soo
Speaking to the Sunday Guardian, Saroop, who plants cucumbers, pumpkin, tomatoes and coconuts on his Road 9, Block 2 farm said "That MOWT crane that sink in the river clogging it should be called a submarine and is causing a big problem. I feel if they call the scrap iron dealers they would faster come and take it out than MOWT.
"The pump shed is caving down, some pumps breaking down and we get flood out.
"They promised new pumps, the rainy season started on May 16 and some of us still haven't gotten compensation for losing our crops from years ago."
He suggested that farmers receive a subsidy for gasoline and diesel to power the emergency pumps to drain water from their fields as they were expensive.
Saroop said MOWT fixed four km of road and damaged two 24 km roads in the process.
According to Saroop, instead of fixing the roads in the interior of the lagoon first, they did the reverse and damaged the roads with the big trucks.
He opined that he had an issue with the Government spending money in Plum Mitan but that farmers were not getting value for money but shoddy work.
Roooplal Ramnanan, whose son has five acres of land at Road #17 Block 4 under cultivation with watermelon, cantaloupe and coconuts said without proper functioning water pumps, one drizzle of rain could be "pressure" resulting in flooding.
He said ironically they were also not getting a proper water supply, some farmers on the boundary were also closing sluice gates and they were getting flooded out.
A MOWT excavator abandoned in the Jagruma River in Plum Mitan.
Charles Kong Soo
Ramnanan said that some farmers were reluctant to replant as they were still waiting on their flood relief grants.
Carlton Bissoon, a watermelon farmer at Road 15, Block 3 is imploring MOWT to fix the roads. As he doesn't have a SUV or pickup, his car's underbelly was caked in mud and debris and frequently got stuck in the water-filled potholes.
Farmer Harry Gopaul revealed that there was a long reach excavator that assisted in desilting the river courses in Plum Mitan two years ago but it was relocated to Longdenville on another project and was never returned.
He also wants to ask the new Agriculture Minister, Kazim Hosein, where is the location of a new unused almost $1.5 m excavator with an expired warranty.
Gopaul said that former agriculture minister Clarence Rambharat had promised two years ago that he would also replace the six drainage pumps and one irrigation pump that were past their expiration, the desilting of 30 km of drainage channels and the rehabilitation of access roads throughout the area.
He added that Rambharat was going to the Ministry of Rural Development and Local Government to get assistance to repair the dilapidated Caltoo Road bridge. This never materialised.
Gopaul stated that many farmers lost their crops last year experiencing heavy losses and were unwilling to replant until the pumps were replaced, as Plum Mitan was a low lying swampy area that relied mainly on pumps for drainage.
He said compounding the problem for farmers was that the agriculture ministry did not provide diesel or gasoline fuel to operate the obsolete pumps and many farmers abandoned lands for this reason.
No response from Sinanan, Hosein
Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan and Agriculture Minister Kazim Hosein did not reply to Sunday Guardian's WhatsApp messages.