(Trinidad Guardian) Some 200 tonnes of rice valued at approximately TT$400,000 is currently being left to rot at the National Flour Mills’ non-functional rice milling complex at Carlsen Field.
The rice, which was purchased from local farmers by the State at a cost of approximately $2,000 a tonne, is to be processed at the NFM mill.
However, the mill has not been functional since November. NFM currently has the mill up for sale.
This has not stopped more rice being added to the pile though, with additional tonnes of rice purchased from local farmers being dumped on the growing heap as recently as Friday.
When the Sunday Guardian visited the area yesterday, several pigeons and other birds were seen walking and resting on the mound of rice stored underneath some galvanise at the compound of the mill.
A rice farmer speaking to the Sunday Guardian under the condition of anonymity said officials from the Ministry of Agriculture, Lands and Fisheries recently held a meeting with stakeholders in the rice industry where the issue of the rotting rice was raised.
Attempts to contact both Minister of Agriculture, Lands and Fisheries Clarence Rambharat and Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry Avinash Singh for an update were unsuccessful yesterday.
Previously, both NFM and the Agriculture Ministry partnered to purchase the rice from local farmers.
But NFM eventually pulled out of this arrangement and the Agriculture Ministry took the initiative to pay the farmers the total cost of their produce using taxpayers’ dollars.
In addition to this, the Agriculture Ministry also paid NFM a managerial service fee of approximately $500,000 a month for them to dry and process the rice.
But then the mill broke down in November.
“From then to now, the rice the farmers have sold is being stored at National Flour Mills and being left to spoil because when the rice comes from the field there is a process you go through to store the rice; you have to dry the rice to a certain percentage and the drier broke down so they could not dry the rice, they were just storing the rice in a big heap and that is causing the rice to spoil and is of no use. You cannot do anything with that rice,” the farmer said.
“Because they have a mandate to buy the farmers’ rice, they are buying the rice and we are getting paid but at the end of the day, the rice is just there spoiling.”
The farmers said even though they were getting paid for the produce, as citizens of this country they were hurt to see the staple being left to waste.
“On one hand I am being paid for my rice but on the other hand, as a citizen, I am just seeing this rice being placed there and being left to spoil. That is disheartening knowing all that can be done with it and on top of that, taxpayers’ dollars are being used for that,” one farmer said.
Sale of the mill also a concern for farmers
One farmer said he was concerned about the direction in which the rice industry was heading.
“What they are doing is buying good produce from farmers and destroying it.”
NFM is 51 per cent government-owned with the remaining 49 per cent owned by institutions and members of the public.
Last month, a newspaper advertisement stated NFM was disposing of all of the mill’s assets on an “as is where is basis”. No assets will be sold separately, it noted.
PriceWaterhouseCoopers Advisory Services Limited (PwC) has been appointed to assist in the divestment process. The sale of the mill was also a cause of concern for the farmers.
“One of my concerns as a farmer is that if this mill is sold to a foreign company and the agreement that the farmers have with the current Government to purchase the farmers’ rice, what will happen to that agreement?” one farmer asked.
“There is one local farmer who is currently running a small mill and he has bid to purchase the NFM mill and we are hopeful he would be successful. The advantage with him is that he could start buying farmers’ rice immediately and start processing while the procedure for the sale of the NFM mill is going through,” he said.
A platform supervisor at the mill yesterday directed the Sunday Guardian to NFM’s communications department in Port-of-Spain.
Trade and Industry Minister Paula Gopee-Scoon said last night she was unaware of the situation but will look into the matter urgently.
T&T SPENDS US$100M ANNUALLY TO IMPORT RICE
Former food production minister Devant Maharaj said when he was in office the country’s food import bill for rice was close to US$100 million annually.
“Part of the food bill reduction plan we had was to try and increase our production of rice locally and we made a significant dent in that, there were close to 1,100 acres in Plum Mitan under rice cultivation and we had incentives for the purchase of rice harvesters and we were doing a lot of things, and we started to see them come to fruition and started to see an impact on the food import bill,” Maharaj said.
Maharaj said the current People’s National Movement Government had undone all the work the previous People’s Partnership administration had done with respect to local rice production.
Maharaj said the issue of rice processing at NFM was an interlocking one as NFM falls under the purview of the Ministry of Trade and Industry.
“I started to do two things to try and streamline this process which seems to have stopped. One is that I started to make moves within the Cabinet to have either NFM in its entirety move to Food Production or at least the rice aspect of it,” Maharaj said.
“Additionally, the issue of the milling of rice in Carlsen Field—they should have that arrangement with a private partner because one of the complaints the farmers had is that they were producing what they thought was good rice and when NFM milled it, all of a sudden the rice became dog rice and they would not get the same price for proper rice as
