Dear Editor,
From the inception of the PetroCaribe deal I know that something was amiss, and that farmers and millers would have to bear the brunt of the Jagdeo-Hugo Chávez agreement. The polished rice and paddy sold to Venezuela was going to pay for oil; the remaining money was for the payment of farmers’ paddy and millers’ rice. The previous government was using this fund for other projects outside of the rice industry rather than paying the millers for their rice and paddy so they in turn could not pay the farmers for their produce.
PetroCaribe had to run into bankruptcy; the previous government was receiving US$130M for every 200,000 tonnes of rice and paddy. How could it divert Region Two PetroCaribe funds to the Hope canal when Essequibians wouldn’t benefit from this project? Last year’s production exceeded a whopping 635,000 tonnes. 501,000 tonnes were exported according to the GRDB. I can only speak for Region Two since I worked as an extension rice officer in the rice industry there. This region is cultivating 31,500 acres of rice with a yield of some 3 million bags of paddy.
Not a cent of this PetroCaribe fund was ever spent here to develop this region’s rice industry, and still millions of dollars are owed to rice farmers in the region. No wonder the previous government claimed that they were bailing out rice millers; they were not bailing them out, since they were the ones who owed these millers for their rice and paddy. The former administration should tell the millers and farmers what they did with the money they received from the PetroCaribe fund. They used some of it to buy standby generator sets for GPL which was totally wrong; none of these sets was ever placed in the rice growing region to cushion the effects of blackouts.
GRDB was misleading the farmers and people of Guyana when they said they had other markets outside Venezuela. No wonder the millers still have a surplus of rice and paddy in their warehouses crop after crop; they were only depending on the Venezuelan market and never sought other international markets. Guyana’s rice farmers have been expanding rice production on the assurance of receiving higher prices for the rice and paddy sold in the Venezuelan market according to the agreement. However, recent changes in the agreement have sharply reduced the price for rice and paddy.
There has been a general decline in rice and paddy prices from $4000 to $3000 for Ex-A Grade paddy since the agreement was signed in 2005.This trend of $2000 a bag for this coming crop paddy is non-uniform, and will have more serious consequences for rice farmers. Government should move to protect the interests of our rice producers and millers.
This could be expedited by finding new markets for Guyana’s rice and paddy on the international market. Further the new government should seek to tap into the EU market.
Yours faithfully,
Mohamed Khan
