The Guyana Rice Development Board has “categorically” rejected statements in Suriname’s De Ware Tijd’s online edition, DWTonline, quoting Suriname’s Ambassador to Guyana Ebu Jones as saying that an insect plague has broken out in the rice sector.
In a statement issued yesterday, the Board said some farmers’ fields in Region Six were affected by paddy bugs during the first crop of 2019.
Those paddy bug cases were dealt with by farmers. Paddy bugs are pests that affect paddy production globally.
The Board said in the statement that 98% of the crop had been harvested at end of May 2019, producing 519,470 tonnes of paddy at an average yield of six tonnes per hectare compared to 508,195 tonnes for the first crop of 2018.
DWTonline also quoted Jones as stating that “paddy is smuggled from Guyana to Suriname.”
The Board said that it is unaware of smuggling of paddy to Suriname.
“In fact, rice has been and is being exported to Suriname legally. For the period 2014-2018, three thousand five hundred and thirty-five (3,535) tonnes of rice and rice by-products were exported to Suriname. In 2018 two hundred and thirty-three (233) tonnes were exported. As at May 2019, ninety-eight (98) tonnes of parboiled rice were exported,” it noted.
Overall exports for the first quarter of 2019 were 103,024 tonnes, compared with 49,629 tonnes for the same period of 2018.
The Board said that despite challenges, the rice industry has been resilient and is dealing with the challenges as they present themselves.
