Secretary of the Rice Producers Association (RPA) Dharamkumar Seeraj said Guyana was looking at requests from Trinidad and Tobago for the shipment of rice seeds to boost that country’s production capabilities.
Seeraj said an official from Trinidad visited Guyana with a view to finalising arrangements with the RPA, the Guyana Rice Development Board and the Ministry of Agriculture. He said that the shipment of seeds would most likely be approved.
Further, he said, the talks encompassed the expansion of cooperation between Guyana and rice growers of that island nation, in the context of the Jagdeo Initiative, which seeks to strengthen agriculture in the region.
“We agreed that they were some areas for expansion. We are looking at the request,” he said. According to Seeraj, the RPA, the GRDB and the Ministry of Agriculture were looking at ways of positioning themselves in the region.
He explained that the export of seeds was different from the export of rice and had to go through a number of protocols at various levels. He said Guyana was in a position to assist Trinidad as well as other countries in the region within the framework of the regional drive to produce more, but local needs were still the priority.
Seeraj said there were good signs for the production of the present crop despite foul weather late last year and the crop for which land was being prepared at the moment was expected to be even bigger, since growth has been occurring both vertically in terms of higher yields per acre and horizontally in terms of increase in acreage.
According to a report in the Trinidad Express, President of the Trinidad Islandwide Rice Growers Association and Coordinator of Rice Co-operative and Seed Production, Marketing and Distribution, Ramdeo Rambalack, said he had been in touch with small farmers in the Penal/Barrackpore district and they had expressed the desire to return to the rice industry.
“The farmers need help. Access roads to the rice lands in the lagoon have been closed and the cost of land preparation, fertilisers and chemicals are very high,” the report quoted him as saying.
The report said that the island’s rice farmers produced 22 million tonnes of rice in 1992 with 6,000 registered rice farmers supplying sufficient white rice to feed the nation, but production dropped with the introduction of a grading system in 2004 and by 2006 there were only 15 farmers producing 6,643 tonnes of rice.
The report quoted Cunupia Farmers Association (CFA) spokesman Anil Ramnarine as saying that there were ten farmers in the association who wanted 50 acres of land to grow rice. “We have some of the best farmers in the world here in Trinidad. Just imagine what these world-class farmers can do if the conditions were right,” he said.
According to the report, Ramnarine that there was only one way forward, that Government must provide support to the farmers of the nation.
