Protesting Essequibo rice farmers made their way to Parliament yesterday to hand deliver a petition of over 1,000 signatures to Minister of Agriculture Dr Leslie Ramsammy, requesting that the ministry act to ensure payments are made for paddy.
The famers also requested that the Agriculture Ministry consider a bailout package that would allow farmers to repay their current debts.
Leaders of the APNU, David Granger, and AFC, Khemraj Ramjattan, told farmers that they would raise the various issues from low paddy prices to the need to reviewing the Factory Act in Parliament once the budget estimates were concluded.
Ramjattan told Stabroek News that the government was doing a poor job of marketing Guyana’s rice and as a result farmers were suffering. He said that “the first priority of all Caricom countries is to buy rice within the group of countries, but that is not the case they are letting other places sell them rice like Thailand and so forth.” Ramjattan stated that while the government had to do its part to better sell the rice market overseas the Factory Act would need reviewing and revisions may need to be made. The AFC leader said that while the Act cannot be legislated to adhere to market standards it needed to put the best interest of farmers and millers at the centre and not just millers.
“We want the government to get into all these issues, the pests that make the paddy defective… and then the development board and its grading system,” Ramjattan stated. He said the government had to regulate and not place blame on farmers for the low paddy prices.
“If the government is saying that farmers are buying smuggled pesticides, which that is not true, they have to responsibility to crackdown on smuggled chemicals.”
AFC’s Nigel Hughes stated that “one of the things we need t look at is setting up a reserve fund like a security fund to pay the farmers when there is a lack of payment from the mills.”
Famers told Stabroek News, “We need a bailout”. Others stated that “the President owes us a meeting he has to know what this industry is coming to.” One farmer stated, “they now say that the Venezuela agreement not going on and they waiting to sign. Yeah! Right! Oil still coming here from Venezuela, but no rice going there!” He said that “millers are buying paddy for next to nothing $300, $400, $500 right and I know that they are still selling rice for the usual prices to Venezuela so who is getting ripped off, nah we? We are here for them to help us now because we need it.”
Famers have been protesting since April 17, calling on the GRDB to be more involved in the grading of paddy and calling on better representation from the Rice Producers Association. Sham Narine an Essequibo farmer told Stabroek News that the many compound issues have come to a head and the farmers are not able to work and make a living. “We know that rice was a good industry we know that grade ‘A’ paddy is $4,000 a bag, but we not getting that now and people need to feed their families and pay their bills,” he said.
Another farmer said that the latest meeting with both the Guyana Rice Development Board and the RPA was not sufficient because “they making promises, but they are making promises to help mills; and mills and we are different people. They came and saw us on Sunday, but they wanted us to fill out some sheet about what wrong; like we not saying all the time what’s wrong? Mills buying paddy for cheap and saying bags damaged. Yeah some damage because Chinese chemicals nah work”.
He was sufficiently worked up before stating calmly “paddy bug is a real problem and the mills are taking advantage of that and buying paddy for cheap which means I’m not getting paid and the RPA and the board they aren’t helping me.”
Meanwhile, Ramsammy told Stabroek News on Tuesday that the PetroCaribe agreement was to be signed this week. It had been postponed due to the death of Hugo Chavez. He had stated that the mills were stocked with paddy ready to be shipped to Venezuela and as a result could not buy more paddy and were in overdraft.
