Essequibo rice farmers insist on meeting with Ramotar

Apr 25, 2013 News

During a peaceful picketing exercise outside of the Parliament Building yesterday, rice farmers from the Essequibo Coast insisted that President Donald Ramotar meet with them and listen to their plights.

The protestors relate their plight to a member of the media.

According to these farmers, in addition to being underpaid for their paddy by mill operators, the costs of fuel and fertilizers have risen to the extent where they are unable to effectively provide for their families.
“We can’t afford this. Rice farmers work hard; we toil day and sometimes throughout the night, so it is unfair for us to be underpaid,” one man said.
Another farmer lamented that although they wanted to, many of his colleagues did not have the transportation fare to come to Georgetown for the picketing exercise.
“This is just about a dozen or more ah awe here, but you would not imagine how many more people did want to come out here today, but didn’t have the money to pay them own passage to come,” Taje Persaud said.
The protestors sought to make the point that their protest was not about politics, but rather, about bread and butter, and the survival of the families of farmers.
In addition, the farmers are also calling on the Pesticide Board to examine the types of drugs and chemicals that are being imported and distributed countrywide.
“These things need to be examined. They are expensive and sometimes when you buy them, they aren’t worth it, especially the ones them that coming from China. This is unfair. The people who importing these things need to make sure that is proper things,” a farmer named “Naithram” said.
The farmers are also of the opinion that the sugar industry is being given more preference than rice.
While it did not last very long, the farmers did manage to get the sympathy of passersby.
Before the protest began, the Alliance For Change (AFC) released a press statement which backed the plight of rice farmers, not only on the Essequibo, but across the country as well.
The statement read that “for far too long rice farmers and millers have complained about the unreasonably high cost of fuel and fertilizers, inadequate drainage and irrigation, shortage of high quality seedlings, and unenforced regulations which cause massive amounts of defective pesticides and weedicides to be imported into the country, each and all of which impact the cost of production”.
The AFC statement added that “these demands are greeted by deaf ears from a Government bent on over-taxing fuel and other inputs and taking a piecemeal and short-term solution to long-term problems.

The farmers demand meeting with President Ramotar.

Government needs to reduce the taxes it takes on fuel, implement regional aerial pest control measures and provide incentives for investment in value added, along with conceptualizing new export marketing strategies.”
The party maintained that rice farmers and the rice industry on the whole, must be treated with more respect.

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