Latest update April 20th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jul 13, 2014 APNU Column, Features / Columnists
The spate of protests in the rice industry tells its own tale of deception and exploitation. The most recent public protests saw hundreds of paddy farmers last week burning tyres and blockading the Essequibo Coast roadway in order to press their demand for prompt payment by rice millers among other matters. This was the fifth protest by Essequibo paddy farmers this year. There have been peaceful protests in March, April, May, June and July.
The situation is a serious one and has had an impact at the personal, regional and national levels. One newspaper reported that the distraught wife of one protester lamented: “How we gon survive if they keep doing this? We gat bills to pay, children to send to school, and food to buy. We are selling our rice to the millers and we are not getting paid. Four months pass and we can’t get pay. This is total nonsense!”
Protesting paddy farmers had previously converged on the precincts of the National Assembly on 24th April last year to meet APNU and AFC parliamentarians. They delivered a petition of over 1,000 signatures to the Minister of Agriculture requesting him to ensure prompt payments are made for their paddy.
No one can doubt the importance of the rice industry. It is, in geographical terms, spread over five coastal regions – Pomeroon-Supenaam; Essequibo Islands-West Demerara; Demerara-Mahaica; Mahaica-Berbice and East Berbice-Corentyne. The industry, in demographic terms, provides employment for at least 20,000 who depend directly on it for their livelihood and, indirectly, for another 40,000 people in related occupations. The industry, in economic terms, contributed about five percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2013 and accounted for more than US$240M in export earnings. The industry provides the staple daily diet for most Guyanese. All of this depends on paddy farmers.
The PPPC administration exerts its political influence and exercises executive control of the industry though the Ministry of Agriculture, the Guyana Rice Development Board – GRDB – and the Guyana Rice Producers’ Association – GRPA. It must therefore bear full responsibility for the current and chronic chaos affecting it. The People’s Progressive Party Civic – PPPC – administration, therefore, must act decisively to ease the plight of paddy farmers and to pay heed to the pervasive problems they face. Their predicament cannot be ignored any longer.
The basic issue is that of under-payment, non-payment or delayed payment to paddy farmers. The GRDB has a statutory obligation duty to ensure that paddy farmers are paid in full within 42 days of delivery. The GRDB is empowered to intervene and initiate legal action against delinquent millers. The GRPA, also, is aware of this problem.
Paddy farmers who are not paid promptly face high interest rates at the banks for their loans, high costs of fertilizers, pesticides and weedicides and delayed purchase of seed paddy. Some have also suffered from poor grading, weighing and pricing of their paddy by millers.
Paddy farmers have been complaining for years about the high cost of fuel and fertilizer, inadequate drainage and irrigation, shortage of high-quality seedlings, unenforced regulations which cause massive amounts of ineffective pesticides and weedicides to be imported into the country. The effect of all of these is to increase the cost of production, reduce surpluses and imprison farmers in a cycle of indebtedness and impoverishment. Farmers have been complaining also of not being paid on time and sometimes are paid with ‘bounced’ or post-dated cheques.
Guyana’s multi-billion dollar, PetroCaribe ‘rice-for-oil’ agreement with Venezuela has indeed fuelled increasing production as farmers seek to sell as much as possible to a guaranteed market. It has also fuelled fears that farmers could be left with large surpluses that could push down the price of paddy being offered. It has ignited anger over the management of this trade initiative which seems to be generating wealth but only for a chosen few. Millers in some areas of high production and in the face of a glut, have already started to lower their prices, forcing paddy farmers to sell at reduced prices because of limited storage capacity.
Paddy farmers in the some parts of the Essequibo Coast, affected by the inability to readily access water through the Tapacuma Irrigation Project – TIP – complain of having been forced to purchase water at a high rate of $6,000 per acre to sustain their crops in addition to having to pay land rental. Paddy farmers in West Berbice also have faced land tenure problems and water control crises from the Mahaica-Mahaicony-Abary – MMA – project.
Farmers have also been plagued by an infestation of insects and snails. Poor drainage in some areas has been the main cause of massive snail infestation which has led to a decrease in growth of vegetation and the destruction of the freshly broadcast rice seedlings. Paddy-drying facilities are essential for, without them, paddy must be moved almost immediately to the mills to avoid damage to its quality and even lower prices.
Paddy farmers have much to complain about. Their complaints and frequent public protests signal that there are sufficient grounds for the PPPC administration to convene a commission of inquiry to inquire into the impediments to the efficient management of the industry. Such a commission must make recommendations for the improvement of the livelihood of the nation’s paddy farmers.
Where is the BETTER MANAGEMENT/RENEGOTIATION OF THE OIL CONTRACTS you promised Jagdeo?
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