Despite the rice industry facing challenges throughout last year, General Manager of the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB), Nizam Hassan, said that over the two crops, 965,120 tonnes of paddy was produced, attaining 90% of the industry’s target.
This achievement, Hassan explained, brought the country’s national yield up from 5.6 tonnes per hectare in 2017 to 5.8 tonnes per hectare in 2018. As a consequence, they were able to export 470,312 tonnes of rice and rice products to the international markets, raking in US$186 million last year.
This pronouncement was made by Hassan through a video presentation titled ‘GRDB’s 2018 End of Year Report’, which was uploaded on the Board’s website and YouTube page on January 8.
“2018 was a stable year for rice production in Guyana. This is in spite of the many challenges that the industry faced. Some are our weather; the production was affected at the end or towards the end of harvesting of the first crop, which also is the beginning of sowing for the second crop. It was also affected by the paddy bug infestation in one of the producing regions – Region Two – and also the industry faced the challenge of delayed payments to farmers,” Hassan explained in the video.
However, despite the challenges, Hassan pointed out that for the first crop, while 87,500 hectares was sown, they were able to reap 508,194 tonnes of paddy, which is equivalent to 330,326 tonnes of rice.
In the second crop, 81,035 hectares were sown, which produced 456,277 tonnes of paddy, the equivalent of 296,580 tonnes of rice.
Overall, the industry sowed 168,338 hectares, which produced 965,120 tonnes of paddy, equivalent to 627,328 tonnes of rice. This, he said, resulted in the exportation of 470,312 tonnes of rice and rice products to the international markets, which brought in US$186 million.
“…so in essence, we only got to produce 90% of our overall target. However, despite that challenge, the industry fared excellent because in terms of yield – the national yield has moved from 5.6 tonnes per hectare in 2017 to 5.8 tonnes per hectare, which is really attributed to improvements in productivity,” Hassan said, while noting that their recently introduced new variety – GRDB50 – also contributed to the increase in productivity.
In terms of the performance of the industry by the specific regions, Hassan explained that Regions Five and Six continued to lead in terms of acreage cultivated, after the two regions respectively sowed almost 37,000 and 20,000 hectares.
However, despite them leading the production and contribution to more than 60% of the crops, Region Four led in productivity, after they were able to produce as much as seven tonnes per hectare.
Regions Five and Six are followed closely by Region Two in terms of acreage but saw its yield take a slight dip after the infestation of the paddy bug.
“Exporting to international markets have been faced with a set of challenges. We are dealing with a demand and supply situation and countries across the world are working similarly as we are towards improving their productivity and minimising their production cost and offering better products and prices,” he said, while explaining that they are currently facing competition from suppliers within Latin America, as well as Brazil, who have already started penetrating some of their CARICOM markets.
Additionally, he noted that competitive prices are being offered in the market by a supplier in the United States, which has influenced their numbers as compared to 2017.
Hassan further explained that their sowing was affected by early rains that came towards the end of the first crop, which affected the number of hectares that were targeted.
“These are just some of the challenges that we experienced in 2018 and it’s very possible we can experience these very challenges in 2019, because the dynamics of trading in an open market dictate that these issues will show up here and there. Notwithstanding, our farmers, our producers have been resilient and we must commend and thank them for being there and working with stakeholders in improving their productivity and addressing the challenges in the best possible way,” he said, while adding that the millers have also been improving their operations and some have been retooling in order to better manage their manufacturing costs.
As for the first crop of 2019, the GRDB is projecting that they will sow 88,500 hectares across all the regions. However, he pointed out that because of the new varieties, coupled with improved practices, productivity is also expected to increase.
According to data which was provided by (GRDB), the total exports from January to October 2017 were 436,825 metric tonnes, as compared to the same period in 2016, where 440,813 metric tonnes were exported.
For the January to October period for the same year, the country earned US$163,605,766, an increase over the 2016 comparative figure of US$155,738,049.
