Essequibo rice farmers are frustrated that the assistance being doled out by the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) while good-intentioned is doing very little to actually combat paddy bugs.
Chairman of the Essequibo Paddy Farmers Association (EPFA) Naitchram (only name given) told Stabroek News that recently the GRDB, under the Agriculture Ministry, invested $25 million to address the paddy bug infestation in regions Two, Three, Four, Five and Six.
However, Stabroek News was told that the investment was subdivided into such small amounts of ‘Pronto’- the chemical used to prevent paddy bug- that it made little sense. Naitchram said that “they are giving 100 grammes to farmers with one to 30 acres of land, it is a powder chemical that you spray.”
He noted that the 100 grammes was next to nothing considering that each acre of land would require 15 grammes of the chemical and subsequently farmers would need to treat the same acre at least 10 to 12 times during the season resulting in 150 to 180 grammes needed per acre. “The 100 grammes can’t really then even do for one acre and then you know we are treating 10 times and probably more,” he said while adding that farmers just could not count on the investment from the GRDB being very useful.
The farmer said that the $25 million dollar investment, when broken down, could be better utilised if farmers were given a portion of the money instead of 100 grammes of the insecticide. Naitchram stated that Essequibo farmers would pay $3,800 for a 500 gramme bag of the same chemical from Caribbean Chemicals meaning that the GRDB was assisting farmers with $760 per acre.
He said that one of the proposed ideas that came out of a meeting held last Saturday was having aerial spraying done by the ministry instead of handing out small amounts of the insecticide to individual farmers. “We don’t know the price they [GRDB] is getting for the chemical but if it’s the price we get then not really, no savings there,” Naitchram said.
Yet another idea proposed by farmers was to sell the chemical at a discounted price instead of handing it out in small quantities.
Naitchram told Stabroek News that because rice farming is done on a farmer to farmer basis, individual help is significantly harder to provide and if the GRDB and the ministry could find ways to assist on a larger, more inclusive scale the benefits would be more profound. In this regard, he again cited aerial spraying.
Naitchram stated that after the GRDB proposed the $25 million investment, farmers were relieved that their fears would be alleviated, but now fear that the manner in which the assistance is being doled out would not have the desired impact. He said that farmers have complained about paddy bug and they raised the issue again on Saturday after the GRDB revealed they would be investing the money to provide farmers with insecticides.
The farmer recalled that the last season saw many farmers receiving low prices for their paddy and said that the EPFA does not wish to see a repeat of the less-than-favourable prices. In April, farmers had protested the low prices being paid out by millers for paddy. In some cases, farmers had told Stabroek News that they were receiving $500 for a bag of paddy while others stated that millers would grade the paddy lower and compensate farmers at half of the $4000 per bag rate that was customary.
Naitchram said that since meeting with the GRDB and the Rice Producers Association, there has been no word yet on the investigations which were supposed to be conducted on millers who are yet to pay farmers for paddy. “We really want a report on the investigation and let’s see what they found about the mills and the operations and when and if this compensation is going to happen,” the farmer said.
In April, the GRDB and the Rice Producers’ Association had guaranteed that farmers would receive some compensation after a review of samples found that some farmers’ paddy ought to have been graded higher.
