The ongoing national discourse on the importance of ensuring that Guyana’s agricultural sector is not quickly washed away by the force of an oil-driven tsunami has bestowed a new significance on the country’s rice industry. Arguably, few people have a better understanding of the phenomenon than, Mahindra Persaud, the Chief Executive Officer of Nand Persaud and Company, the single largest privately-owned rice milling operation in Guyana. One of the most candid Guyanese businessmen in his assessment of what remains a critical economic sector, Persaud is under no illusions about the enormous significance of continually expanding rice production even as national attention shifts to a widely- anticipated oil economy.
Last weekend he spoke with Stabroek Business, as he customarily does, about a broad range of rice-related issues, not least those that have to do with the current constraints to the expansion of the sector.
