Moruga farmers are protesting what they say is the State’s failure to give them legal tenure over land they have planted for years. About 50 people protested on Friday along a road leading to the La Savannah Foodcrop Project site.
The project is in the constituency of former PNM Member of Parliament Peter Taylor. The challenger for the seat in the May 24 election, Clifton De Coteau, met the group, and promised support to help them secure ownership of the land.
Harry Ragoo of La Fortune Trace, La Savannah, said that farmers were victims of the State. He said that, in 1970, when the Government developed the La Savannah Foodcrop Project, more than 75 farmers received five-acre plots. ’Since then, a number of plots have been vacated,’ he said, and a new generation of farmers have been added to the farming community. ’Our children have taken over the vacant plots and have been cultivating the land for a number of years,’ he said.
The 60-year-old father of seven said that on his five-acre plot a variety of food crops were grown. He said that his four sons did not receive academic qualifications. ’I could not afford to send them to school and each of my sons have been earning a living from the land,’ he said. The farmers claimed the Government was attempting to take away the land and bring in outsiders into the village. ’We want priority for our children,’ Ragoo said.
Ramkissoon Jagroop, 60, has been planting a five-acre plot since 1984. He said that the land was given to a farmer who moved to Penal but who did not object when Jagroop began planting the land. ’I applied to Government several times requesting land tenure for the parcel of land,’ he said. But he remains a squatter with no rights, he said.
Officials of the Commissioner of State Lands said that they were unaware of any move to evict the farmers of Moruga.
By: Ariti Jankie
Via: Trinidad Express