NIC Urges Protection of Canals and Irrigation Equipment in Farming Communities

The National Irrigation Commission (NIC) is urging residents in farming communities to safeguard the open canal systems and irrigation equipment installed islandwide to support farmers.

Public Relations Specialist at the NIC, Christeen Forbes, reports that the agency has received complaints of individuals obstructing canals and dumping garbage into the water systems.

“In St. Catherine and Clarendon, we serve a lot of our farmers through open canal systems. We have a lot of issues with that, because we find that persons are not protecting our infrastructure, and we are calling on persons to help us protect the infrastructure. Water means food, and if we don’t look out for the irrigation infrastructure, then it is going to affect our ability or the farmers’ ability to produce food on the level that we need,” she stated.

Ms. Forbes highlighted challenges the NIC has with persons blocking the canals, “whether it is to have more water so they can swim in, which is illegal, and they also dump their garbage in the canal”.

“So, we have to spend thousands of dollars to clear the canals, almost on a weekly basis, from garbage and other debris,” she added.

Ms. Forbes further stated that persons have been using water from the canal to wash their vehicles.

“This is very damaging… [as] it compromises the water quality. We do daily testing but we don’t want to compromise the water that we are sending to our farmers to produce food.

“So that’s a key issue that we are hoping to get more public awareness around… for persons to understand that when they see the canal, it’s not for swimming, it’s not for dumping garbage, it’s not for extraction, because we do have people taking the water from the canal for other purposes…. and it’s not for swimming or hosting parties,” she emphasised.