The rice industry is in complete chaos

Oct 20, 2009 Letters

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Dear Editor,
I am pleased to see that rice farmer and President of the Guyana Rice Producers Association, Mr. Leekha Rambridge, has fully supported the RPA Action Committee’s marketing approach, which is to seek a wider marketing strategy that would allow us to get the best price for our rice.
Last crop we made numerous attempts to negotiate a better price for rice farmers by contacting the Venezuelan government through the Commercial Attaché at the Venezuelan Embassy in Guyana, without the support of the Guyana Government.
The current attempt by President Jagdeo to secure a Venezuelan sale is too late, for most rice farmers, who are getting far less than the anticipated price. The relevant officials from the Guyana Rice Development Board and the Ministry of Agriculture have sat back and waited for the right buyers to come to us, despite recognition by Mr. Jagnarine Singh, the GRDB’s General Manager, “that the weakest link in the industry is marketing”. He told the farmers at Cane Grove in my presence, just a month ago.
The current chaos in the rice industry, where rice farmers have no guaranteed price for their product, must lie at the doorstep of the Minister of Agriculture, Robert Montgomery Persaud, and Government. The GRDB, a body, primarily, set up to market rice, is just a puddle of the Minister, who appoints the chairman of the Board, through a statutory regulation, which was established under the misrule of Forbes Burnham.
Government in another attempt to appease rice farmers has further compounded the problem by investing in a Laser Land Leveler and a John Deere tractor costing $19.6M, at a time when rice farmers are receiving starvation prices for their paddy. Government so far failed to negotiate a better price for rice farmers’ paddy, which is now fixed at $2,000 to $2,500 per bag.
The big question is what has happened to the $400 million announced at a press conference last month by President Bharrat Jagdeo. It would seem to us that, without any consultation with rice farmers, the President plucked a figure out of his head, as if the money was coming from his personal earnings.
What we urgently need is not “state of the art” machinery, but reasonable price for our paddy so that we would be able to cultivate the coming crop. Most of the Essequibo rice farmers, in particular, have not yet received the promised $3,000 for their paddy from millers, despite the excitement by President Jagdeo that he had secured a deal with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to purchase 50,000 tons of cargo rice.
Essequibo farmers, who held a massive demonstration and attempted to overturn the Minister of Agriculture’s vehicle last month, were expecting to receive at least $3,000 per bag from the potential Venezuelan contract. Assuming the Venezuelans buy their quota of rice, this would leave more than 310,000 tons of rice on the market. Government boasted that we produced a recording breaking crop of over 360,000 cargo tons of rice this crop, but no other buyers have come forward and farmers in Berbice feel very let down by the Minister of Agriculture and GRDB, which consists mainly government supporters and henchmen.
Before this year rice harvesting began, the US-owned company is reported to have signed contracts for about 20,000 KG of rice with a few local millers/exporters, who are not acquainted with the rules of the international market, but agreed to sell rice at US$355 per 1000 KG Cargo, thus, basically setting the price of paddy at $2,000 per bag and sealing the faith of rice farmers.
Under the GRDB’s rule, rice contracts must first be presented to the GRDB before a deal is concluded with the buyer and therefore the Minister would have been fully aware of the current price of $2,000 per bag for paddy, through his puppets on the Board. On a Television programme, the Minister denied that any contract has been signed. The issue is – if no contracts have been signed for the sale of our rice, and farmers are about to complete harvesting, when will the contracts be signed?
The rice industry is in complete chaos and disarray. It is time that the Minister of Agriculture tells the whole truth to the country and the rice producing communities, which constitute nearly 30 percent of the country’s population. Rice farmers are private producers and should be allowed to run their industry and not dictated by the Minister of Agriculture and his cohorts. He cannot have it both ways. If we operate in a “free market” environment, then, let us make the decision over the industry and not the superimposed officials of Government.
In our quest for support for our industry, we are yet to receive the support of the Private Sector Commission, despite my conversation with its chairman, Mr. Gerry Gouveia.
The GRPA has once again sold out our bargaining rights and rather than ‘barking for us’, it has now turned around and is biting us. The organisation no longer represents the interest of rice farmers, but openly collaborates with the Jagdeo Administration to further wreck the rice industry and destroy the livelihood of thousands of rice farmers and their families.
In the meantime, the GRPA Action Committee has filed legal action against the current so-called elected officials of the Guyana Rice Producers Association for allegedly rigging its own District Committees Election. The hearing continues in the Supreme Court of Judicature in Georgetown. Rice farmers are expected to turn out in large numbers. The last hearing was graced by Guyana’s first Attorney General, Sir Fenton Ramsahoye, one of the greatest legal minds of Guyana and the Caribbean. He sat in silence and could not wait to get out of the Court room, expressing grave concern at the standard deliberations and the dispensation of justice in our country.
Mr. Justice Winston Patterson, who on the 30 April, 2009, granted a Nisi Order in a motion for a writ certiorari, a prohibition and mandamus requiring the Guyana Rice Producers Association to bring all the documents and evidence to the High Court for the purpose of showing why the Order should not be quashed, is no longer presiding over the matter. He has been transferred to Berbice and he is not expected to return to preside over the matter. He is preceded by a pretty inexperienced female Judge.
The election machinery of the Guyana Rice Producers Association is totally controlled by the current General Secretary of the Guyana Rice Producers Association, who is a PPP Member of Parliament; and a General Council, which appears to be an appendage, rather than offering real leadership in the fight for better prices for rice farmer’s paddy.
In the case against the GRPA, we have alleged that those selected officials who were in control of the election machinery have engaged in a highly irregular and unfair electoral process. We hope that our Guyanese consumers of rice will actively support rice farmers in their fight for a democratic organisation – run by rice farmers for rice farmers.
Jinah Rahaman

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