Officials return from Venezuela

Oct 15, 2009 News

No definitive word from Caracas

The officials who were sent to Venezuela to finalise a rice deal between the two countries have returned to Georgetown.
Earlier, Agriculture Minister Robert Persaud said at a meeting that he had dispatched the General Manager of the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB), Jagnarine Singh, and the Secretary of the Rice Producers Association (RPA), Dharamkumar Seeraj, to Venezuela to try and hasten the inking of the deal.
The Minister at the time said that he had instructed the two high ranking rice officials to “hold their clothes in their hand and take rice samples in their suitcases”.
The men have since returned with little to show other than another promise reportedly given to the officials that a sizeable contingent from the Spanish-speaking country will be visiting Guyana by next week.
According to a source the meeting was cordial and the officials were satisfied with the samples shown to them. However Caracas has not committed itself to a deal just yet until its officials inspect quality, purchasing arrangements and advice from Petro Caribe, which will be sending officials as well.
Further, the source said that Venezuela would no longer be taking the 50,000 tonnes of cargo rice. Instead the country will take that volume of white rice. The source is unsure why that country has taken this move.
The source said that officials within the industry are hopeful that the deal comes to fruition when the Venezuelans arrive.
The Guyana Rice Producers Action Committee spokesman, Jinnah Rahaman, said he had little faith in the deal. He opined that the move by Venezuela was just a diplomatic manoeuvre by that country to appease Guyana.
A deal between the two countries was first mooted when President Bharrat Jagdeo and Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez met at a United Nations climate change meeting in New York last month.
At the time Chavez agreed that his country would buy 50,000 tonnes of cargo rice from Guyana. Officials were hopeful that the deal would have been done by now, however the Venezuelans have asked to inspect Phytosanitary and other standards before they move forward with the deal.
A number of measures were taken to revive the industry that is said to be at the crossroads. Farmers have been receiving $2000 for a bag of paddy and they started a nationwide cry for better prices.
President Jagdeo intervened and offered a $400M intervention that needs to be approved by the National assembly, which is in recess, before a penny is spent from that.
This year the industry is expecting its largest every harvest after farmers planted lager acreage expecting the same high prices they received at the beginning of the year. Those expectations were short lived after major rice producing countries increased production causing the price of rice to plummet globally.
(Brushell Blackman)

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