President of the Essequibo Paddy Farmers Association Naith Ram yesterday called on Minister of Agriculture Noel Holder to convene an urgent meeting to update rice farmers on the PetroCaribe agreement and other issues facing them.
Ram, who represents over 4,000 farmers on the Essequibo Coast, said the most burning issue at the moment is that many are owed millions of dollars for paddy sold to mills. He claimed that some rice farmers are owed as much as $9 million.
Minister Holder could not be contacted yesterday for comment.
Speaking to Stabroek News via telephone, Ram said he has made several attempts to contact Minister Holder to discuss this particular situation without success. He spoke of repeated complaints from farmers on an almost daily basis. “The farmers, through the association, are requesting an urgent meeting with the minister to discuss a way forward,” he stressed.
The next rice crop, he said, is expected to be reaped at the end of August and the paddy is going to be sold to the same millers who already owe farmers huge sums. Back in March last year, then agriculture minister Leslie Ramsammy had said that farmers throughout the country were owed over $300 million in total.
In the face of ongoing protests by the growers, the PPP government had announced on Christmas Eve last year that it was advancing $2.1 billion to millers so they could meet obligations to rice farmers. By then, the ministry was saying that famers were owed some $3.5 billion.
Asked why the farmers would continue to give paddy to mills when money is owed for previous supplies, Ram said that the paddy was sold based on an agreement which states that in two weeks farmers are to be paid 50% of the money and by the end of 42 days they should get the full payment. “Millers have breached the agreement claiming that the paddy has not been shipped yet but that is not the farmers’ concern,” he stressed.
The rice farmer, stressed that the previous government erred in not identifying other markets besides Venezuela, given that rice production has increased greatly over the years. More and more people along the Essequibo Coast he said have ventured into rice farming resulting in the rice output being greater.
Last year rice farmers produced a record 633,000 tonnes of rice surpassing 2013’s bumper production of 532,000 tonnes.
Meanwhile, rice farmer Ganesh Persaud who hails from Sparta, Essequibo Coast said that two mills together owe him millions for paddy he had supplied to them. “No one telling meh nothing. Abbi depend pun this fuh meh livelihood,” he said while stressing that he had invested a lot in his rice crop. Persaud told Stabroek News that he has been a rice farmer for about 40 years and at present, he plants 300 acres of land, some of which he has rented. “Is all investment,” he said before noting that if he gives up rice planting he would have no income.
Asked what he plans to do if at some time in the future he has no one to sell his paddy to, Persaud said that all he can do now is hope and pray for the best.
“Ah hope and pray fuh betterment under this new government,” he said before agreeing that it would take some time to sort out the present woes facing the rice industry. “I hope to God that government run this country good and see we get prompt payment and better price. That is what we need. That is what all rice farmers need,” he stressed.
Guyana’s annual rice barter agreement with Venezuela has been in place since 2009 and the Spanish-speaking nation has since said that it will conclude in November this year.
Finance Minister Winston Jordan has since told this newspaper that since 2014 Venezuela was signalling that there would be no additional arrangements under the PetroCaribe fund.
Contacted yesterday, Jordan told Stabroek News that the responsibility for finding new markets for rice falls under several ministries including the Ministry of Business, saying that it is also the “business of the country.”
He reiterated that the need to find new markets was “known before. It was told to the previous government”. However, there was no apparent action in this regard.
