Dear Editor,
At several meetings across Region Two, the President has said that he realized that the rice industry is in a crisis and he will fix it soon. I wonder how soon he will fix it? Rice farmers who purchased seed paddy from the RPA seed bond at Anna Regina for this upcoming spring crop have shown me a sample of highly bug-damaged seed paddy; more than 50 per cent of the seed has damaged grains and wind paddy, and is of very poor quality. I was the first to be trained by Farm Supplies technical engineers to operate the seed dryer, cleaner and the standby power plant on this project in 2000. In fact, this place where the seed project was built was an old dumpsite for old sea defence lorries, cement mixtures and other discarded materials.
I was in charge of seeing the site cleared, and a contract was awarded to Mukesh from Cane Grove, East Coast Demerara to build the bond and the operating areas. The drying floor was constructed by Mr Seepersaud of Perseverance, Essequibo Coast, through IFAD. From my experience operating the dryer and cleaner, the poor quality seed can be due to many factors; either the dryer and cleaner fans were closed or not open enough to blow out the wind and damaged grains from the paddy, causing it to remain in the seed paddy.
The other factor could be that the hopper from which the dry paddy is being discharged from the seed dryer was open at high, causing same to enter and bypass the sieve of the cleaner then goes into the wooden bin where it is stored and bagged off at 140 lbs. The contractor and his men would do these things if no one is on the site to overlook the operation in order to make more bags, because they are being paid per bag to clean and dry the seed paddy. At the end of the day the farmers who buy this paddy suffer.
These farmers bought this poor quality seed paddy for $5,000 per 140 lb bag, yet when they sold their field paddy to the millers they only received $2,400 for the highest grade bag and $400 for the lowest grade. Seed paddy is quite literally the starting point for rice cultivation. As such, its importance cannot be overstated. Poor quality seed such as what these farmers bought at the RPA bond, affects productivity and encourages the spread of disease. High quality seed paddy must have these factors: before you can sell it as seed, the moisture content should be 14.0; damaged kernels (single or combined) 1.0; red kernels 1.0; yellow kernels 0.1; amber kernels 0.5; green kernels 2.0; chalky kernels 2.0; broken kernels 6.0; and foreign matter 0.5; and it must be certified to ensure quality by GNBS. Farmers need seed adapted to their production, requirements and able to meet the challenges of the shifting agro-ecological systems caused by climate change. I do not think the RPA and GRDB are geared to meet these challenges in the rice industry. There are many obstacles facing small-scale farmers in obtaining good seed at affordable prices. Fake seed is a major problem in all rice growing regions, which has the rice industry in a crisis to some extent. Some unscrupulous dealers are selling poor quality substitute seed at a very high price to farmers, many of whom only discover their costly mistake when their crop fails.
In my tenure as an Extension Officer, I had to identify clean, suitable fields free from monkey trails and all other foreign matter, then register the seed growers. The seed growers generally have small plots of land ranging from 1-10 acres, and routinely they were given basic seed from the rice research station at Burma. Prior to the harvesting of their seed crop, extension officers are mandated to make at least 3 visits. The first is to advise on crop husbandry as well as generally overlook of the entire field. On the other visits, the field will be sampled for purity, as well as insect and other pest damage. If the field has reached the quality of C-1 seeds, the farmer will be issued with a certificate; this practice has not being followed by officers. The seed farmers normally sell all their seeds to the RPA bond. If the President really indeed wanted to fix the rice industry, he should begin with a transparent and efficient regulatory system to ensure that farmers have access to quality seed.
Yours faithfully,
Mohamed Khan