Dear Editor,

Recently at a forum at the Anna Regina Multilateral School, President Jagdeo announced the release of two hundred and sixty million dollars to bring relief to farmers during the El Niño crisis.

Present at that forum were Minister of Agriculture Mr. Robert Persaud, General Secretary of the Rice Producers Association (RPA) Mr. Dharamkumar Seeraj, Chairman of Region No. 2 Mr. Ali Baksh and all other stakeholders. The need for open consultation on projects to be executed was reiterated by the President.

One such project was the construction of three drying floors by the RPA in Region 2.  At this point I would like to ask the question if there were any consultations with the local representative of the RPA, executives or moreso the rank and file members of the RPA and reputable stakeholders and farmers.

Question No. 2 – What immediate solution can drying floors bring to the sufferings of the poor farmers. We need a more vibrant farmers organization and a more strong and committed Minister of Agriculture. Come on Seeraj and Robert do something more tangible and meaningful for our suffering farmers, please remember the amount of pain and suffering they have to endure, sleepless nights and hard days to bring food to the nation.

At the grand opening of the Walton Hall drying floor the goodly Minister had the gall to boast on public television that the drying floor will bring strength and resilience to farmers.  This gentleman has to be out of his mind, the public is so disgusted.

The fact is that when an average farmer has his paddy to reap at any point and time he is very much strapped for cash. He has all his creditors coming down on his narrow back, he has a family to sustain, children going to school, household and family needs and everybody looking forward at this point and time for something.

Then this goodly Minister is going to tell us to take our paddy to his goodly gift to us (the drying floor) and dry it and stock it up to have negotiating strength with the millers for a better price.

This might be very good to hold the millers at ransom for a better deal, but I wish to ask the Minister how many farmers with an average yield of three hundred bags can muster the resources and strength to dry three hundred bags of paddy, and store it and wait for a price when reaping the paddy from the field and transporting same to the drying floor has a cost.  Drying it on the drying floor also has a big cost and heavy risk (weather pattern).  One has to buy empty bags which is very costly, pay high cost for labour, pay transportation and labour from the drying floor to the storage bond if you can afford any, or most likely the inconvenience of your bottom house or even your house. Then the high cost of storage, infestation of insects, rats and mice destruction and who can afford to fumigate their stock. Then above all, paddy is highly perishable and deteriorates and depreciates at a very rapid rate when not finally processed into the finished product (rice).

So Mr. Minister and Mr. Seeraj having looked at all these overhead costs, burden, inconvenience, stress, financial difficulties and our livelihood at high risk, would you guys still hold on to the idea that you so proudly rammed down the throat of our helpless farmers at Walton Hall at the opening of your drying floor as workable?

No. Mr. Minister our hard-working and hard-pressed farmers deserve something better, please bring some kind of hope to our helpless farmers.

What farmers need is proper pricing and purchasing arrangements.  The Minister and RPA along with the GRDB must have power and strength which they do, but seem not to be utilizing it to bargain strongly with the millers to at least give farmers a proper deal. Don’t behave at times when negotiating as if you are begging the millers to be kind to farmers.

Who is responsible for the issuing of licences to millers?  Who gives them export permission or licence?  Who finds markets for them?  Who knows about the price per ton the millers are getting or they will get for the export of rice and who fixes and collects the rice levy, all these were never made known to farmers.  This gives rise to some serious suspicion that somebody is cutting deals at the expense of our poor suffering rice farmers.

We are not asking the millers to pay a price they cannot afford, we are asking them to deal fairly with us, pay us in accordance with the price they receive from the export market. We are not saying that the millers must not make a profit, yes they must make a profit but not a super profit at the expense of farmers who are always on the edge and getting poorer and poorer.  It is clear as daylight that the millers in our region are growing, investing and expanding very rapidly, crop after crop.  Is it that they are getting the money from the sky or they are so blessed, no! It is because they prey on helpless farmers.

Come on Mr. Minister and Mr. Seeraj the children of our farmers are crying out loudly in desperation and need, having realized what hard work, sufferings, and sacrifices their fathers, their brothers and to some extent their mothers have gone through to grow their rice crop.  We have worked hard, sleepless nights in dew, high winds and storms, lying on the bare ground just to sustain our rice crop with water by pumping to bring our crops to maturity in order to bring food to this nation.  Some farmers are so tired and fatigued that they cannot come to grips with their health; I myself spent sleepless nights in the backdam sometimes without food and water.  These experiences are devastating to our health.

At this point and time let me bring to your attention something that is very unsatisfactory about the construction of the so-called gifts – the three drying floors that are under construction, two have already finished, one at Walton Hall and the other at the back of Henrietta, the next one is to be built somewhere in New Road on the Essequibo Coast.

It has been observed that no consultation has been held with the immediate stakeholders, farmers, and people in the community so as to determine suitability of site, soil contents, the possibility of flooding, and proper ingress and egress.  Two sites were hurriedly arrived at and most of the farmers and stakeholders in the area are totally against it because of the possibility of flooding and lack of proper drainage.  There was total disregard and disrespect for our people in this region for construction of such a simple concrete bed. No quotation was sought from contractors in our region to do such a job. At least we have sons and daughters and relatives of rice farmers who are more than qualified to do such a job, and as such it would have been gratifying to know that our sons and brothers benefited from such spending. After all, this is our region and this is our thing going on here, instead the guys brought in contractors from way up in Berbice and from Canal No. 2 as if we do not have competent contractors and workers to do such jobs.  This is total disregard and disrespect for our people in this region. Where are our representatives, I ask.

The two drying floors were not properly sited first of all. No proper engineering and proper surveying were done, and if what was done on those two sites was called proper engineering, then the good Lord please help us.  Just a little bit of grubbing was done with no proper back filling, no compaction to bring the base to the average height of a proper drying floor. No steel was placed in the base, just a layer of cheap chicken mesh.  Upon that base a mixture of cement, sand and mixed crusher run, not clean stone, a dirty looking mixed crusher run was poured to bring it to about four to six inches to what they call  a concrete bed or our drying floor.

On the opening of the facility at Walton Hall on the Essequibo Coast, a big delegation headed by the Minister of Agriculture and General Secretary of the RPA,. Mr. Seeraj and others came down from Georgetown on a specially chartered flight. The aircraft waited for nearly three hours for them.   Cheddi Jagan would have travelled through with the speed boat so that he would have had a chance to rap with the public but these guys don’t want that, maybe they are afraid of confrontation instead of conservation.  At the grand opening of this drying floor in the presence of the Regional Chairman Mr. Ali Baksh and other officials, the Minister instead of using his keen knowledge of knowing real value for money made some very bold statements, high commendations and proudly accredited himself on the delivery of such a project as if he has brought down from heaven such a gift of God for the sufferings of our poor rice farmers.

I would have thought that at the end of the opening of the drying floor, the Minister would have gotten very serious, having realized, if he did, that we did not receive real value for our money. Fourteen million dollars of hard earned rice farmers money would have posed some serious question of accountability to persons responsible, instead high praises were showered giving the farmers the impression that they have received real value for money which is definitely not so.

The two drying floors were done in such a swift manner, the one at Henrietta started on Wednesday 17th March, 2010 and was completed within one week, 24th March, 2010 – in a matter of eight days, 12,000 sq. ft. of concrete bed was completed.

Imagine I took the pain to solicit the services of a qualified and most experienced Quantity Surveyor to give me an accurate cost of those floors. It was most shocking and surprising the figures he came up with compared to the hefty fourteen million.

The way in which the drying floor was done gives rise to serious suspicion and uncertainty. We the stakeholders and rice farmers and other concerned residents of Region #2 are making a serious call for a through investigation of the planning and the way the drying floors are being constructed.  What criteria were used to identify the contractors?

We would like to know what engineering formula and estimate was used, we would also like to have a second opinion of the above and we do have competent people in our region who can do same.

We are therefore making a special appeal to His Excellency the President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo to have a thorough investigation of this serious matter.

Let us make sure that our hard earned taxpayers’ money is being utilized in a most transparent and beneficial manner.  Rice farmers in this region have suffered too long to tolerate such nonsense.

Yours faithfully,
Heeralall Mohan,
Justice of the Peace,
Rice Farmer, Region 2