Latest update April 17th, 2024 12:59 AM
May 14, 2013 News
Government is recommitted to ensuring rice farmers do not suffer as far as payments are concerned, according to the General Secretary of the Guyana Rice Producers’ Association (GRPA), Dharamkumar Seeraj, during a press conference yesterday.
He explained that during a recent meeting with the Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, and rice farmers in Essequibo, several measures were outlined. According to Seeraj, one of the problems highlighted was to have an advance available to the millers but payable only to farmers.
“This would see the oversight of GRPA in ensuring that the cheques that are made is given to rice millers based on the amount of paddy that they would have purchased on a ratio basis,” the General Secretary explained.
He added that the payment will be authorized and approved by the GRPA in conjunction with the rice board to ensure that the $2.5B that is being made available on a loan basis to the millers, is paid to farmers.
The purpose of the advance is to improve the cash flow situation and to ensure that it goes directly to the farmers. “We also have different teams looking at different aspects of problems. We have one team looking at the grades that were given to farmers and the other team looking at the time of making advanced payment from the time of purchase.”
Seeraj said that it is a burning issue for the government to ensure that the rice sector itself, which plays a dominant role now in terms of the overall economy as a sustainable industry, does not suffer in any way from whatever hiccups would have occurred.
“The current crop that we are harvesting (about to complete in some regions) is the largest crop. It’s just about 202,000 acres which means productivity has improved.”
Two weeks ago, the Venezuela Food Minister, Felix Osoria and Dr. Ramsammy, signed off on agreements guaranteeing the export of rice. The agreement to export rice was a deal secured by the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
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