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Essequibo rice farmers stage protest
While representatives from the Guyana Rice Development Board and Guyana Rice Producers Association held a critical meeting, yesterday, at the Region Two Boardroom to discuss with rice farmers, the critical issues affecting the Industry, a group of rice farmers mounted a protest outside.
The rice farmers protesting outside the Region Two office.
They refused to listen to senior representatives, including Dharamkumar Seeraj of the Rice Producers Association, Jagnarine Singh, Permanent Secretary within the Agriculture Ministry, George Jervis and Quality Control Manager, Ms. Allison Peters. They were adamant that they meet with Minister Dr. Leslie Ramsammy.
Minister Dr. Leslie Ramsammy has scheduled a meeting for Saturday.
Seeraj explained that while the Industry countrywide has been experiencing major problems, including cash flow, shipping and payment to farmers, Government is intervening and as such has some $500M reserve to assist farmers who have suffered losses in the first crop.
The assistance, he said, will take the form of affording farmers seed paddy and fertilizers. Seeraj added that a letter of commitment has been signed with a team from Venezuela. However the actual deal with the Spanish-speaking country has not officially kicked off. This has been causing compound setbacks to the Industry, Seeraj said.
The first rice shipment to Venezuela is scheduled to commence in June. Millers have extended their overdraft and as such all of the entities must work collectively to address the prevailing issues.
Seeraj said that since March12, the team was supposed to sign the deal with Venezuela but due to the death of President Hugo Chavez, there were added setbacks.
The grading system is being looked at; a free grading course is being offered to farmers by officials of GRDB.
“If we have a problem, we need to anchor it where it belongs. Farmers have genuine problems and as such we are making a genuine effort.”
Some 20,000 acres was cultivated for the first crop.
George Jervis has made recommendations that the Rice Association Act be discussed with farmers.
Jagnarine Singh said that a technical team has been monitoring the bug infestation issue with the intention of recommending the appropriate drug to use on their crop.
Rice Miller, Nazmul Hakh, of Golden Fleece Estate said that while the market has been limited, he has continued to pay out between $6M and $10M each week, to farmers. Hakh has been exporting his rice to Jamaica.
(Yannason Duncan).
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