Dear Editor,
Former prominent businessman and ‘icon’ of the Guyana rice industry, Mr Kayman Sankar of Hampton Court Essequibo, has again come to the rescue of the Essequibo rice farmers in Region 2. The decision by Mahaicony Rice Mills to suspend the purchase of farmers’ paddy at their Vilvoorden Complex has sent shock waves through hundreds of farmers, all of whom are in the process of reaping paddy from thirty-five thousand odd acres. Mr Kayman Sankar and his business counterpart, Mr Naieem Alli have agreed to allow a committee known as the Farmers’ Forum to use the facilities of the Sankar Rice Milling Complex to purchase, grade, dry and store farmers’ paddy until sales agreements for such paddy are executed in about six weeks time.
The other rice mills in Essequibo do not have the capacity to manage the one-and-a-half million bags of paddy produced in Essequibo. Mr Sankar’s rice-milling complex and his very popular airport were never out of operation. Sankar purchased Hampton Court as an abandoned sugar estate and made history in Essequibo in the management, upgrading and education of rice farmers there. His company offered loans to farmers; stood security at landing agencies; gave scholarships to rice farmers’ children; and made dozens of house lots available to residents. In this energetic period he would visit farmers’ cultivation and give superb advice in good rice husbandry, thus moving the traditional average of twenty bags of paddy per acre to thirty bags of paddy per acre. A patriotic dispensation to rescue the Essequibo farmer is again his ideal, to keep the well-being of Guyana foremost in his mind. This approach by the Farmers’ Forum is in collaboration with the Guyana Rice Producers’ Association, the Guyana Rice Development Board and Kayman Sankar Rice Milling Complex.
Yours faithfully,
Andrieko Basir