Dear Editor,
Some rice millers here on the Essequibo Coast have turned a number of rice farmers into beggars for their money. I never believed that I would one day live to see farmers protesting on the road crop after crop for their own money. I was a rice farmer cultivating 10 acres of paddy twice a year, and for decades I knew the sacrifices these farmers are going through to cultivate their crops without being paid for months, and in some instances, years. The shortest variety of paddy is rustic, and it takes 110 days to ripen. The longest one is 30-3 which takes 130 days to harvest. When a farmer cultivates his rice crop, the risks are high; he can lose the entire field because of a number of disasters like floods, prolonged droughts and unpredictable weather patterns.
Rice farming is no bed of roses; the farmer has to wake up before daybreak and walk a long distance to tend to his crop. He will leave his field late at night, and this is his daily routine until he harvests his crops. If the dam is in a deplorable condition while transporting his paddy in bulk, and it capsizes into a canal or on the dam, he could lose the fruits of his entire labour. The risks are too high for a rice farmer, and no miller should dare try to rob him of his hard sweat, or have him waiting for his money for months without interest. I would like to congratulate those millers who saw it fit to pay off rice farmers after purchasing their produce.
The thing that really amazed me is that some unscrupulous millers received a bailout from both governments and still owed the farmers millions of dollars. It’s my firm belief that these millers used the bailout money to modernize and extend their rice mills. Nothing is wrong in upgrading the mills, but they should do it at their own expense and not hold the poor farmers to ransom. Hundreds of Essequibo farmers are now left unpaid. Recognizing the many challenges of non-payment, government, the GRDB and the Ministry of Agriculture should make interventions and see that the farmers are paid. The Rice Act can play a very important part in taking the delinquent millers to court.
Some millers received debt write-offs from GNCB long ago at the instigation of the Jagdeo government, but they continue to owe farmers. I firmly believe that they are playing a hide and seek game with the farmers and the government. The other millers who have paid off their farmers promptly, see the farmers as an asset to their own survival if they are to stay in the rice business and expand their operations. Let it be known that the rice industry is the most integrated of all sectors.
Defaulting millers must understand that farmers depend on their money to feed their families and send their children to school. Without money they cannot produce paddy, which the millers then process. The suppliers and banks will not provide the farmers with loans and agro-inputs if the millers continue to owe them. As a matter of fact, small farmers were forced to rent out or sell their lands when they became indebted; the banks often times foreclosed on their assets and they had to go and find employment elsewhere in the gold bush. It is the duty of the new coalition government, the GRDB and the Ministry of Agriculture to see that these farmers receive their outstanding payments for their paddy.
Harvesting of the present crop has commenced in Region Two and it will be the first crop under the new coalition government.
Yours faithfully,
Mohamed Khan
