Nema resolves Kudang rice field road problems

The National Agricultural Land and Water Management Development Project’s construction of access road to rice fields in Kudang, Central River Region South has addressed their access problems, but the expectation is not yet met by the villagers due to an unknown source of flooding.

“Now things are easier. Cars and donkey carts are going and coming without any delay. No matter how long the rice filed is, there are access roads everywhere. We even have a roundabout in the rice fields,” said Mr. Lamin Ceesay, Chairman of the Village Development Committee of Kudang

He said this has benefited them a lot especially women who suffer the most. He said today, everything is easier for them and they can transport their harvest without any delay.

“This is another development that the village has benefited from Nema” Ceesay told Mansa Banko Blog in an interview in Kudang village.

The project came after the village recognized their problem and decided to seek for support from agricultural projects, but it was Nema project that rescued with the construction of an access road to the rice fields.

Flood

However, unfortunately for the Kudangkers, since the construction of the road, they cannot benefit much from their rice field as they were over powered by flooding.

“Since the construction of the access road, surprisingly, we did not realize anything from our rice fields as expected. This is because for the past two seasons, we are experiencing serious flooding. Water is just flooding like that. We do not know what caused the flooding and no possible solution is advance yet and it only happens in the rainy season. If it’s not this problem, the entire region and beyond can work in this rice fields because from Kudang to Kuntaur are all the same rice fields” he narrated.

When asked whether the flood is cause by the construction of the access road, Mr. Ceesay said: “I do not believe that it is the cause of this problem. I don’t see any reason why the road construction could cause such flooding. It is a heavy flood, because if you enter into the fields water comes up to your chest. So, you cannot work under those kinds of conditions. We have to wait until water is reduced and that is normally at the end of the rainy reason,” he explained.

He noted that the authorities from the Ministry of Agriculture had promised them that they will bring experts to survey the place so as to establish the problem and come up with solutions to address the problem but still nothing is done yet.

Inaccessible

Ceesay said the Nema project has brought them many road projects and it’s benefiting them a lot.

“This road is benefitting us a lot. Our previous access roads were in a very bad condition and are inaccessible. We only use the footpath even with that donkey carts cannot ply the road” he said.

This, he explained makes it very difficult for people to transport their harvests from the rice fields to home which is about 3 to 4 kilometers long.

Good harvest

“We used to have very good harvest, but we cannot transport them out from the field, and other areas we cannot have access to,” he said.

Ceesay said this reduce their production level but since the road network was constructed, they have access to their fields, but flood also came in as another obstacle.

“Now, we are looking at what we can do to address that problem,” he stated.  

He pointed out that the constructed of the access road has increase production and even make them increase the number of hectors that they normally cultivate each year.

“Before one person gain 150 to 200 bags of rice but since 2 years ago, people had about only 2 and half bags. This past year,some gotnothing. It was a total failure” he said.

According to him, young people in Kudang are very much ready and prepared to work in the rice field, saying they are committed and others have their own rice fields as they took up farming and are earning something good to improve their living.