About 85 percent of the Suriname is covered by tropical rain forest. According to the Constitution, all Surinamese have the right to a piece of land if they apply for it. All the land is state owned.
The Minister of Natural Resources is in charge of the allotment of state-owned land. The Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Fisheries is consulted for advice on the allotment of land for agricultural purposes. Land may be held under proprietary right, hereditary tenure or land rent.
About 1.5 million ha, most of it located in the coastal area, have potential for agriculture. About 120 000 ha are currently used for agriculture, animal husbandry and aquaculture. Most of the land has been mapped and classified by the Soil Department of the Ministry of Natural Resources. Detailed soil surveys are done on request.
About 55 000 ha have been prepared for rice production and 2 000 ha for banana production. The rest of the land is used for livestock, fruit, vegetable and aquaculture production.
The Government of Suriname plans, implements and maintains the physical infrastructure for agriculture. Because the cost of maintaining this comprehensive infrastructure is a heavy burden on the budget and the new way of thinking is that "the user should pay", the Ministry of Agriculture, in collaboration with the Ministry of Regional Development, is working on a programmes to install water councils, authorities and boards. Each district will have a water council. Water boards and a main water board or water authority may also be installed, depending on the hydrological units and their complexity. Farmers will make all the decisions, pay and be responsible for the organization of the water boards. The Ministries, along with the water councils, will act as facilitators and guides and will be responsible for overall supervision. Research results and data collection will be channeled through the water boards, under the instruction of the relevant authorities.
|
Gerrit Breinburg |
Although Suriname has an average annual rainfall of 2 200 mm, some crops are still irrigated because the rainfall is not evenly distributed. Data on climate are collected by the Climate Department of the Ministry of Public Affairs.
The main irrigated crops are rice and banana. About 30 000 ha of rice are irrigated per crop. Irrigation water comes from rivers and swamps.
For some crops irrigation is supplementary, with water use of about 1 200 mm/ha/crop. Most of the time drainage is the problem.
The system currently used is called an open system in agriculture engineering terms. The irrigation system may be divided into hydrological units, depending on the size of the production system, the water supply and drainage. Units vary in size and in the number of farmers using the system.
The irrigation system for banana is different. There is one banana company with two plantations. Trickle irrigation is used and fertilizers are applied through the system. Rice and banana are both grown on heavy clay soils.
The main natural resource issues are the use of agricultural chemicals and the regulation of the gold mining. Reliable agricultural planning data are also needed, and an agricultural census was prepared with the collaboration of FAO to obtain funding for the census. However, Donor funds were not made available so the census could not be conducted.
In Suriname people have been trained in the use of GIS and the Soil Division of the Ministry of Natural Resources is equipped to do GIS work. However, to date, the Ministry of Agriculture has no GIS facility.
