With predictions emanating from the global Analytics company, GRO Analytics Intelligence, regarding a likely sharp reduction in rice production in 2022/2023 (a projection with which the United States Department of Agriculture concurs), it would be instructive to attempt to assess the implications of this pronouncement for Guyana, the foremost rice grower in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).
GRO’s recent Intelligence Report made no mention of Guyana in its projection on the state of the global rice industry in the period ahead, its primary focus targeting some of the ‘heavy hitters’ in the sector, including India and China, never mind the fact that the fortunes of Guyana’s rice industry have an important bearing on the food security bona fides of other Caribbean territories. The causes of the projected underperformance of the global rice sector, according to GRO Analytics, range from “weather events in the rice-growing heartlands of Asia to crop diseases and consequential damaged harvests in other parts of the world.” The predicted production decline, GRO is quoted as saying, is hinged to “a reversal following consecutive years of increased rice harvests worldwide.” The GRO report also asserted that it was the previous plentiful supplies forthcoming from global rice giants like India, which, for the most part, had “helped to forestall even worse food security crises in those parts of the world that had been gripped by sustained famine.”