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Essequibo farmers to get fertilizer vouchers from today

Dec 09, 2009 News



$400M rice intervention:

Government’s promise of a $400M assistance to rice farmers is to start filtering down today with vouchers for fertilizers being issued at Essequibo.
According to a statement from the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) yesterday, vouchers valuing between $2,200 per bag of fertilizer will be issued for every acre that eligible farmers have up to 30 acres.
Several weeks ago, farmers hard hit by falling world prices had demanded help from government as paddy prices plummeted from $6,000 per bag last year to $2,200 per bag this crop.
President Bharrat Jagdeo then announced that he was allocating $400M to assist the industry but consultations would have to be held with farmers before a decision would have been made on how the money is spent.
Minister of Agriculture, Robert Persaud, said that based on consultation with farmers countrywide, $208M was made available for fertilizers and vouchers would have been issued to farmers eligible.
Yesterday, the GRDB statement noted that the voucher programme, part of the government’s Assistance Programme for rice farmers, is being executed by the body in collaboration with the Guyana Rice Producers Association (RPA).
But GRDB said the process was not going smoothly. “One of the biggest hindrances to this process is the incorrect information supplied to our extension officers. The information had to be verified and this is taking a long time, as we needed to have some verification done in the fields.”
According to GRDB, the vouchers can be taken to companies identified by RPA and exchanged for fertilisers.
The remaining part of the $400M intervention, some $180M will be used to construct drying floors, as decided in the consultation process, GRDB revealed.
The construction of the floors will commence as soon as the ownership of the lands earmarked for this purpose is regularized.
This process should be completed by January 2010.

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