Essequibo farmers to continue protest over paddy prices

-GRDB working on mechanisms

Essequibo rice farmers yesterday vowed to continue protests over prices from mills even as the GRDB promised mechanisms following several meetings where bags of paddy were opened up to show the growers infestation and poor quality.

Over the weekend at Hampton Court and Golden Fleece along the Essequibo Coast, the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) and the Ministry of Agriculture facilitated meetings with millers and farmers. Farmers stated that they still feel as though the GRDB does not have their best interests at heart, stating that the meetings were held at two mills instead of at the Regional Democratic Council. “They went and talked to the millers first then they had the meeting, they heard what the millers are saying and then together they met with farmers,” a frustrated rice farmer told Stabroek News yesterday.

A protest organizer and rice farmer, Sham Narine stated that “paddies are damaged and lots of us know this, but the millers are still taking advantage of people because the grading system for the paddies is not a decent one”. He continued that the grading system is easily manipulated by millers. Narine said that officers from neither the ministry nor the GRDB are present when farmers unload paddy at the mills so millers are able to set extremely low prices by saying that the grade of paddy is poor.

He said that “the GRDB went and held meeting at two mills: Wazir and Caricom and then met with farmers and they were prepared to say nothing really”. Narine was adamant that the meetings were just a venue for millers and the GRDB to “feel like they doing something”. He said that farmers had to take to the streets and lobby for fairer treatment. He noted that “Wazir is the mill that was buying paddy for next to nothing, some was damaged yeah but not so much”. He continued that farmers realized that the paddy in question will sell for less than $4000 per bag but that the selling of bags for $300 to $500 was insulting.

Narine told Stabroek News that the mills were not being truthful when they reported to the GRDB that they were not selling for less than $1000 per bag of paddy. Narine stated that “the mills are trying to cut their costs and they are not turning people away from bad paddy like they claim. They are taking product and buying for cheap.”

Another rice farmer activist, Naitram stated that “our issue is when they held this meeting the GRDB is asking the farmers to prove the millers are charging $300, when we are all coming with the same story”. He said that “it is simple maths, even if the paddy is 50 percent damaged and a bag of paddy is selling for $4000 how are you giving people $400, it makes no sense,” Naitram said. He denied that the paddy was that heavily damaged.

Jagnarine Singh, General Manager of GRDB told Stabroek News yesterday that, “we had millers bring out some of the bags of paddy that farmers are asking $4000 for and asked them in the audience if they would buy and  farmers in the room were shaking their heads saying no”. He said that the bags were riddled with pests and as a result mills couldn’t resell the product because it would produce no yield. “Millers are saying that they had to turn away people with this level of damage, we needed the farmers to see what some of them were saying deserved more money,” Singh said. He noted that the millers insisted that low grade paddy was still fetching a reasonable price, not $300 per bag.

“We wanted everyone at these meetings, farmers, millers, the ministry everyone had to be here so we can develop a plan,” Singh stated. He said that “we are getting all the farmers to fill out a form and we will use that data collected to develop ongoing mechanisms to help deal with some of their issues”. He noted that some of the problems were already addressed. “We had heavy rains in December so most of the farmers were rushing to the mills, normally everyone isn’t harvesting at the same time so the mills aren’t backed up…these kinds of things we are discussing letting everyone know what the others are thinking”, he said.

Singh stated that “we are here to tell these farmers that this year we planted 200,000 acres and farmers are getting 35 bags per acre,” which he noted was a big increase from last year’s average of 28 bags per acre. Singh said that many of the farmers’ concerns stem from production being high and the system needed time to adjust to the increase of supply.

Farmers were adamant that to begin the process of moving forward the Rice Factories Act had to be changed or amended because many farmers feel as though the act is anti farmer and pro miller. Essequibo farmers first took to the streets on Wednesday of last week calling on the agriculture ministry to assist them over the low paddy prices.