Dear Editor,
In our endeavour to keep the rice industry alive, we have started land preparation for the autumn crop. Just recently, we have been able to harvest what was salvaged from the challenging El Niño weather conditions. It was not easy for all of us, especially when help did not come in a timely manner. Support was sparse from the relevant governmental authorities in some instances.
Lets take, for example, the paddy bug infestation. This insect is the farmers’ number one enemy and the little we were able to save, has been badly damaged by paddy bugs. This is all because of poor management skills and laxity in essential services to the rice farmers on the part of the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB). In this institution incompetence pervades.
GRDB, through their research station, knew beforehand that there would be an invasion of paddy bugs in this particular crop. But they did nothing of significance to sensitise the respective farming communities to the same. The Burma rice research station has an entomology department with a fully trained entomologist as its head. This official was sent to India where she was trained and came back home with a doctoral degree in the same field. I sense that the expertise of this particular official and the full complement of her staff are being under-utilized, so that the hard working farmers suffer.
By now, everyone should know that the smell of paddy bugs or the sight of damaged grains, gives the miller justification in handing out the lowest grades to the farmers. There is no flexing at this point; the miller applies his standard procedure and the farmer has to pay the various penalties factor after factor. In the end the miller gets his marketable quality – the farmer gets little or nothing as his profit margin. While we hang our heads with disappointment, some people should hang their heads in shame!
I do not blame the miller alone for such indiscretion because in his head he lives with a capitalist mentality, and in his cunning efforts to take all from the voiceless farmer the GRDB behaves like a spectator, and sits silently allowing this stranglehold on the unsuspecting farmers in the rice industry. This industry has long passed its fledgling stages and it is too big to fall out of the sky.
The Guyana Rice Development Board is bereft of visionaries and wise decision-makers. They fail to engage the right people in the rice industry, because of being too haughty. GRDB needs to have a marketing bureau with specialized staff to handle foreign markets for our rice, because in competitive world markets, if you are not good enough with knowledge of world market affairs, you will always be left out in the cold.
Whatever we may produce, if we do not have a ready market for same we would definitely have dead stocks on our hands and eventual spoilage. Producers of such commodities will over time lose interest and be propelled into agitation and confrontation. When some of their source of income diminishes, the human power to reason goes wild and the will to hold oneself in restraint is blown away.
The world over, whenever a particular minister lack the dynamism to foster change, that minister is replaced. I join other letter writers in their SOS call that Minister Noel Holder be relieved of his portfolio. Failure by our government to take appropriate action, will cause irreversible damage to the rice industry. We must, however, agree that the Ministry of Agriculture is a very large ministry and if the work load is challenging, let us all get the right person to take that portfolio and move the rice industry forward. Can a dental surgeon perform open heart surgery?
Another area of concern to all rice producers, is the potency of agro-chemicals. Millions are invested in these foreign products and on occasion, the farmer gets very poor results. Do not challenge me here, as I bought all my needed chemicals from [name supplied] and these people are supposed to be a reputable establishment in agro-chemicals. But disreputable acts can come in the form of the falsification of labels or the sale of chemicals long past their shelf life. I am told by very good sources that the Bureau of Standards seldom checks on very large importers.
We have been using the most successful chemical, ‘Pronto Pronto’ for a very long period to neutralize paddy bugs; it has a slow reaction but is lethal. We are told at seminars that constant use of certain systemic chemicals will cause immunity build-up and ultimate resistance by the particular insect. GRDB again is in default; they failed miserably to alert the farmers first, then the importers of this important scientific fact and demand alternative effective chemicals. But then who cares about the fate of the farmers?
Let there be love, let there be peace, let there be togetherness
Yours faithfully,
Ganga Persaud
