Following the doubling in prices last year, the rice price has again increased and a number of factors are said to be responsible for this including the high cost of fertiliser and fuel and the demand for paddy brought on by international market forces.
Further, the recent rains haven’t helped, driving up the cost of transporting and handling paddy in wet conditions.
General Manager of the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) Jagnarine Singh told Stabroek News on Friday that it is difficult to say if and when the price for rice will drop and there is very little that could be done about it.
He said that even with the last few days of sunshine, the other factors like fuel, fertiliser and the export pull still come into play.
He explained that due to what is happening on the world market, the price of paddy has been steadily increasing.
Singh noted that when the weather is rainy, paddy that could have otherwise been transported in bulk has to be bagged and this alone among other handling costs sends up the cost of production.
When this newspaper visited the Bourda Market on Friday, the price for rice hovered around $360 to $395 and $400 per gallon for white rice and between $560 and $600 for brown. The product is up by $40 per gallon in some cases.
One supermarket in Eccles retails white rice at over $500 per gallon and brown rice at about $650 per gallon.
Vendors told this newspaper that it was only last week that the prices jumped. According to the vendors, the Government intervention with the low priced rice didn’t help much, and they said that the quality of the rice being sold at the Government outlets left much to be desired.
Singh said that he would have to check the veracity of the reports that the rice being sold at the Government outlets is of a lesser grade.
“The millers say that paddy not there,” said Ramnauth called Sarjoo of Bourda Market. “The rain falling so they can’t get to cut. It (the price) got more to go,” he said.
Ramnauth noted that in January after the Government stepped in with its low priced rice, prices in the market dropped a little. The initiative had been taken by the Ministry of Agriculture in collaboration with the New Guyana Marketing Corpora-tion and the GRDB following the more than doubling of the price of rice.
But Singh acknowledged that the Government rice programme did little to stabilise prices, as was one of its objectives. He said that it satisfied at the time of its implementation an immediate need to get rice to the city at a price significantly lower than what was being offered at the markets.
Another vendor said that the farmers have raised their prices because of the high costs of fertilisers and this is contributing to the present high prices.
In January, Rocky, another Bourda Market vendor had said that his grocery stall had stopped selling loose rice. He said on Saturday that it was only last week that the stall started back selling loose rice since customers were asking for it.
