A $261 million pump station has been commissioned in Cozier, Lower Pomeroon, Region Two, bringing improved drainage and irrigation to hundreds of farmers in the area.
The rehabilitation project benefits approximately 5000 acres of cash crop, and entailed rehabilitation of the existing structure and installation of an additional pump that suffered damages some years ago.
The wooden sluice doors were upgraded to stainless steel, and a new 100-cubic-feet-per-second mechanic drain pump was installed. This will divert water that previously flowed from Cozier into the Pomeroon, reducing the risk of flooding in the area.
Previously, only one pump was in operation at the pump station.
To complement the work of the pump station, the canals will also be dredged and rehabilitated.
Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha, explained that in addition to the Cozier pump station, the government is constructing two other pump stations on the Essequibo Coast – one at Plantation Andrews, which is set to be commissioned in the coming weeks, and one at Charity.
For the Charity area, Minister Mustapha outlined that issues with the initial design led to the project being placed on hold to accommodate a design change to address issues like erosion and overtopping. However, he assured that farmers can expect to see this critical piece of infrastructure installed soon.
Moreover, in the Pomeroon area, the agriculture minister underlined that thus far, the government has provided four excavators to help the farmers with drainage and bed-lifting projects, benefitting over 500 farmers.
“We are seeing investment in the Pomeroon for the first time in the history of this country, the Pomeroon has its own excavators, four excavators we put on the Pomeroon. We put a pontoon there, and we are now building a new pontoon so the Pomeroon eventually will have four excavators with two pontoons to help the farmers there,” he said.
Minister Mustapha emphasised the government’s commitment to agriculture, contrasting it with the previous administration’s neglect from 2015 to 2020.
He reminded that the PPP/C Government has fulfilled nearly all promises made in its 2020 manifesto, including significant investments in agriculture, which have led to increased rice production and modernisation efforts.
To underline this, the minister disclosed that rice production in the region is soaring to new heights.
“We have been doing a number of D&I works, and to date, for this rice crop, in the history of the Essequibo Coast, we have never cultivated so much land. For this crop, we have cultivated 36,027 acres of rice land on the Essequibo coast,” he said.
During the first quarter of this year, the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) reported that over 360,000 metric tonnes of rice have been produced, and the 2024 target of rice production is approximately 710,000 metric tonnes. Minister Mustapha is confident that this target will be surpassed.
The minister said this is the result of hard work and determination, as the government remains committed to realising its vision of expanded yield and production across the country.
“To date, when you look at all the investments that are taking place on the coast in Region Two, in various parts of Region Two, when you look at agriculture alone, it’s almost $4 billion that will be expended by the end of this year,” he pointed out.
He spoke of the government’s ambitious and innovative plans to construct new pump stations, agro-processing facilities, and hydroponic facilities in the region to enhance agricultural productivity and food security, in line with the regional ‘25 by 2025’ objective, which aims to reduce the food import bill by 25 per cent by the year 2025.
“We want to ensure that we take your production to another level. For too long, we have been a primary producer of food, of agricultural produce. We want now to add value…But we are also targeting another set of the population. Whilst we are doing that and making all these investments, we are also looking to focus on modernising the agriculture sector. We want this sector, as I said, to be real, resilient, and competitive, and we also have to modernise it,” the agriculture minister asserted.
Director-General of the Ministry of Agriculture, Madanlall Ramraj; Regional Chairman, Vilma De Silva; Chairman of the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA), Lionel Wordsworth; Guyana Livestock Development Authority’s Chief Executive Officer, Dr Dwight Walrond, other heads of agencies, and regional officials were also in attendance. [DPI]
