Dear Editor,
Rice farmers of the northern side in Region Two are facing heavy losses of their crops due to the rainy season. These are farmers who sowed their crops late for the Spring crop of 2018. Some 20,000 acres of ripe rice from Dunkel to New Road on the Essequibo Coast will not be able to be reaped because the land is waterlogged and soft. Combines are trying to harvest as much paddy as they can in the field to help the farmers offset some of their expenses. It will be difficult to recover their total costs of production for this crop and go back to the land. Out of a 10-acres block only three acres will be harvested.
Combines are finding it difficult to travel in the rice lands because of the mud, the header of the combine cannot pick up the ripe rice to cut it, the tracks of the machines are throwing mud on both sides covering the paddy.
When the sowing of the crop is late like the northern side of the region, it will end up in the rainy season and farmers tend to lose their entire crops, especially if there is no proper drainage and access dams to transport the paddy to the mills. The farmers are strapped with fertilizers debt and other costs of production. Some millers will give credit to the farmers in conditions like these where the combine can only reap three acres. The millers will transport the paddy to his mills then deduct his expense.
Ninety bags of paddy is the most the farmers will get from three acres after sowing a 10-acre block.
Yours faithfully,
Mohamed Khan