BENGAL, Trelawny — Minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries, JC Hutchinson is appealing to the National Irrigation Commission (NIC) to provide water for farmers in the Trelawny communities of Fontabelle and Deeside.

“I am asking the chairman [of National Irrigation Commission]…the custos [of Trelawny] mentioned it to me, and I am going to say it publicly, I would like you to look at Fontabelle property right here in Trelawny, and Deeside right here in Trelawny, to see if you can provide the farmers in those areas with water. Water is close by and all you need to do is to look and see if you can get that going for them,” Hutchinson appealed.

He also charged the NIC to look to rainwater harvesting for the supply water for irrigation purposes for small farmers across the country who are without the commodity.

“I am saying there are many farmers up the hills of Trelawny, St Ann, St Mary who don’t have water. I am asking you to look at water harvesting in many of these areas where you can dig a pond, put in pond-liners up in these hills and you get water from the road, you have water coming down through the hills and you have that catchment there, and then you get a pump and you can irrigate it from there, drip irrigation and so forth. So I am challenging you, look at these areas where you have the small farmers, no water, no river, no spring, and have water harvesting,” challenged Hutchinson.

“I want to challenge the NIC to take a look at many of the small farmers throughout this country. I am one who believes in the small farmers, because overtime they are the ones who have been making sure that agriculture grows.”

Hutchinson was speaking at the NIC’s commissioning of its first large-scale solar photovoltaic system, built at a cost of $37.77million at the Bengal Pump Station in Trelawny, which serves the Braco Irrigation District in the parish.

Minister of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries Audley Shaw announced that the retrofit of the pump station includes the installation of a 90kw grid-tied solar photovoltaic system to self-generate 75 per cent of the energy requirement of the pump station.

This retrofit will reduce the cost to produce a cubic metre of water within the Braco Irrigation District by 50 per cent.

“The use of this renewable energy technology will not only influence cost, but also reduce the NIC’s carbon footprint by 110 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually,” Shaw said of the project, which was completed in five months.

Hutchinson expressed confidence that with the commissioning of this improved facility, more bountiful supplies of the vegetables will be produced in the Braco area, not only for the hotel industry, but also for the domestic and export markets.