Dear Editor,
On the Essequibo Coast, a great part of Region 2, the fortunes of many families are directly and indirectly tied to the success of the rice industry. When this industry experiences problems, many families suffer. At this point in time many families and the industry are facing the greatest of problems.
(1) Pricing: Essequibo farmers were the only ones to receive only $1500 a bag for paddy for the last crop. The reason for this is that in the region 500,000 extra bags of paddy were produced. This extra supply caused the millers to be unscrupulous.
(2) With the current crop farmers are finding it very hard. Water shortage, due to poor management of this resource, has seen many fields affected. To save their crops many farmers have to pay as much as $3,000 per hour for irrigation. A ten acre plot on the average takes 10 hours. It is sad to note that some farmers have already pumped three times. These farmers will receive nothing at the end of crop, and will be indebted.
Water, especially in the dry reason, always used to be obtained from the Tapakuma Lake. No effort is being made by the administration to undertake this activity. It is the first time since the establishment of the Dawa pump that this has happened. With the new agriculture minister being very vocal about reforms in the sector, farmers are wondering what he is doing about this critical issue.
(3) Another serious problem faced by rice farmers is the price and timely supply of fertilizer. Even though fertilizers are supposed to be zero-rated a lot of VAT is charged. Farmers have been paying as much as $5,300 per bag. This represents a 25% increase. It seems as though the RPA has turned its back on farmers.
In addition to the above problems many farmers could not have obtained fertilizers at the desired time. This will affect their yield and put them in a far worse position. In some cases farmers could not have made application as the plant became too old.
The rice industry has gone through a lot of strain but the resilience of farmers have kept it going. We sincerely hope that these problems will be dealt with expeditiously so that it will not be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Yours faithfully,
S Khan, N Diaram,
K Narain, Chandrika Hoomali and 29 others
Editor’s note
We are sending a copy of this letter to the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Robert Persaud, for any comments he may wish to make.
