– Bamia farmer on a mission to make Linden, Region 10 self-sufficient
By Svetlana Marshall
Residing at Bamia on the Linden-Soesdyke Highway just minutes away from Linden – the country’s second largest town – 44-year-old Eustace Williams witnesses firsthand the droves of vans and trucks transporting food to Linden from the capital city – Georgetown – on a daily basis.
As a farmer in Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice), it is his hope that one day this trend would be reversed, particularly in the case of poultry, livestock and cash crops, and farmers there would be able to adequately supply residents with fresh fruits, vegetables and poultry.
“If you come on this road [Linden-Soesdyke Highway] about 5:30-6 in the morning, you would see how many vehicles would come to Linden from Georgetown with produce every day. Linden is behind on agriculture, and…it is time we make farming a big thing in Linden,” Williams told Village Voice News during a recent visit to his farm.
He pointed out that the majority of the produce are bought in Georgetown – a place not big on agriculture. “Georgetown doesn’t do farming, the bulk of the farming is done in Berbice and in Parika, and the greens vendors that sell in Georgetown, the majority of them, is what we call the middle man. So, if we produce enough crops, we could meet the demands of the Linden market but we would need the support,” he explained.
One acre at a time, he hopes to one day become one of the leading agricultural producers in Region 10.
Originally from Paradise on the East Coast of Demerara, Williams, in 2005, migrated to Bamia, where his wife lives. A livestock farmer at the time, Williams was forced to seek higher grounds with his more than 50 pigs after Georgetown and the East Coast of Demerara were hard hit by the floods.
“After the flood, we brought the pigs here in 2005, [and] I saw a big avenue for agriculture because I see everything comes from Georgetown,” Williams said.
But rearing pigs in the area had proven to be a major challenge as they were constantly attacked and bitten by bats, causing them to become blind. Williams had turned to poultry but given the fact that the land on which he and his family occupied did not belong to them, and that too had proven to be another challenge.
He would later take a five-year-break but in the interim, acquired 10 acres of leased land for agricultural purposes. Just over a year, Williams and his family resumed farming with major focus on cash crop and poultry.
“Basically, we got over 2000 birds (layers), and we are doing some cash crop. We do a lot of celery; [I’m] probably the largest celery producer in the region. We harvest over 150 pounds of celery per week, but we also do tomatoes, sweet pepper, hot pepper, we also plant married man pork, broadleaf thyme, bora and boulanger,” Williams said. Just last January, he harvested approximately 3,000 pounds of tomatoes and in the near future, the farmer is looking to rear broilers or meat birds.
All of his produce are sold to a single vendor at Mackenzie, Linden but he is looking to expand. Currently, he utilizes 5 of the 10 acres of land secured but as his expansion project takes shape, Williams said there would be need for additional land.
“The kind of farming that we are thinking about this land is small, so we would need more land because we want to keep expanding our farm [and] we want to expand to the highest level and become a big agriculture producer,” he said.
Though he intends to expand his farm, Williams said his focus will be on Linden and by extension Region 10.
“The thing about it we are looking after home, because we are saying that 95% of the things sold in Linden come from outside of Linden but we can minimize that,” he posited.
But Williams said he alone cannot do it, as such it is important for other farmers in Region 10 to expand their production, even as he expressed the need for more residents to get involve in agriculture.
In an effort to encourage farming in Region 10, it is important for the Government and Regional and Local Authorities to invest in the Region’s Agriculture Sector. Williams said many farmers are finding it difficult to clear lands assigned for farming.
Many have attempted with their bare hands, but there is only so much they could do, Williams said.
“One of the things farmers facing in Linden, and will always face is land clearing. When I came up here first, this piece of land, we do it with hand…but when you are finish, there is the stumps right there, now who is going to stump out an acre of land with their hands, this is a modern time, and you cannot farm in between stumps, you have to get the land clear,” he explained.
He posited that systems ought to be put in place for farmers in the region to have easier access to equipment to assist in land clearing, noting that the venture is an expensive one, and farmers would do well with assistance from the authorities.
The 44-year-old farmer also made a case for the establishment of an Agriculture Bank in Guyana. He explained that while lending institutions such as the Institute of Private Enterprise Development (IPED) and the Linden Enterprise Network (LEN) have proven to be helpful, their interest rates are higher compared to the commercial banks.
“But when you go to a commercial bank, once you receive the loan, the very next month you have to start repaying the loan, and that can be tight because you ain’t farm nothing yet,” Williams said as he iterated the need for an Agriculture Bank.
Weighing in on the issue, former Region 10 Regional Chairman, Sharma Solomon said it is unfortunate that the District continues to import a large percentage of its food from other parts of the country.
However, he said should the District revisit projects and studies conducted in the past by the Linden Economic Advancement Programme (LEAP), the Linden Chamber of Industry, Commerce and Development and Economists, it could become self-sufficient. However, he said in order to become self-sufficient, the region must first understand its food consumption rate.
“Works were started, and you don’t necessarily have to reinvent the wheel, all you have to do is look at those reports, where adjustments are needed, make them and fix those deficient areas so you can then help farmers like Eustace to produce more,” he posited.
Further, Solomon made a case for increased agro-processing to be done in the region. He said while serving as Regional Chairman, he pushed for there to be Economic Committee to examine the commercial sectors within the region including agriculture.
“We would like to see the Government bring in agro-processing plants, so that people who are doing peppers, can do pepper sauce, people who are doing fruits, can do jams and jellies, so you are satisfying the needs of the people through food security and when you have food sufficiency, people can now use that to export outside of Linden and Region 10 to generate a bigger capital. That is what the economic programme was looking at in terms of areas in agriculture and all the other sectors, in terms of how we develop them,” he explained.
