Opportunities appear to loom large for Guyana’s rice industry following the Ministry of Agriculture’s announcement by Agriculture Minister Robert Persaud that the industry had exported a record 320,000 tonnes in 2010.
The achievement comes, perhaps, as a surprise given the vagaries of changing weather patterns resulting from the climate change phenomenon though the Agriculture Minister said at his year-end media briefing that the industry’s success last year resulted both from the efforts of rice farmers as well as the technical and extension services provided by the Ministry.
For much of 2010 the rice industry has been under threat from EI Nino weather phenomenon and the fact that overall production for 2010 reached 360,000 tonnes was good if perhaps unexpected news for the industry. “The rice sector has been one of the more exciting sectors in terms of performance, because at the start of the year we were very fearful about the performance of the rice industry in light of El Nino…,” Persaud told the media.
The surprising upturn in the fortunes of the rice industry first became apparent when the Ministry reported a significant increase in production in September. This, coupled with various disaster-related crop failures in several countries gave rise to prospects that Guyana could benefit from increased prices on the international market. Indeed the Ministry’s September 2010 Commodity Update confidently alluded to the likelihood that “the country’s rice might be able to attract higher prices on the international market.”
Late last year the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) announced a downward adjustment of its forecast of global rice production though even the reduced figures indicated that world paddy production for last year would exceed that of 2009 by at least 2 per cent. Rice production in Latin America and the Caribbean last year were projected to decline by six per cent to 26.5 million tones.
Earlier this year the Ministry of Agriculture had predicted that Guyana was likely to benefit from greater import demand resulting from floods and other setbacks that cut production in some of the major rice-growing countries including Pakistan, Cambodia, South Korea and Thailand. In looking ahead, the FAO has forecast that global rice trade was likely to drop by around 2 percent as several major exporters are expected to face supply constraints.
The success of the local rice industry in 2010 is attributed largely to research work done in the sector including experimentation aimed at increasing rice yield.
The Burma Rice Research Station has reportedly been seeking to apply more sophisticated technology to its research pursuits and recently, two new varieties of rice – GRDB 9 and 10 were released in 2009.
According to the Ministry a third, flood-tolerant variety is scheduled to come on stream soon.
The first two varieties reportedly comprise around 30 per cent of the acreage currently under cultivation and Persaud said that these were introduced “particularly with climate change in mind.”
Work by the Ministry to help support the farmers last year included a number of fields schools aimed at increasing cultivation practices. According to the Ministry of Agriculture Guyana currently boasts 66 licensed rice mills.
