Latest update December 4th, 2024 2:40 AM
Rice production passes 500,000-tonne mark
Guyana has recorded its biggest ever rice production, surpassing the 500,000 tonnes targeted for 2013.
And it is more than likely that final figures will indicate production has gone past the target by an astounding 100,000 tonnes, Agriculture Minister Dr Leslie reported yesterday.
”On Monday, the twenty-first of October, for the first time in our history, we reached a goal which many persons in this country said would be impossible, and those who believed it was possible thought that it would not happen till 2020. On the twenty-first of October 2013, Guyana surpassed 500,000 tonnes of rice in our production,” the Minister disclosed in a Government statement.
Rice farmers inspecting paddy in a field that was cultivated using the six-point practice.
“At the present time we are approaching 522,000 tonnes. I used that number because last year’s production was 422,000 tonnes. It was a record and for us to break that record, with more than 100,000 tonnes, is an astounding story, one that all of Guyana should be very proud of.”
Yesterday, rice production stood at 514,000 tonnes, but there is about six to seven percent of the cultivated land yet to be harvested. Expectations are now high that the country can reach the 600,000 – tonne mark, the Agriculture Minister said.
“Indeed I would say to everyone that should we be able to find the markets, not the market that would take our rice, because we have enough people who want our rice, but the markets that would pay us the price we want for our rice, then we can reach 600,000 tonnes within the next year or maximum two years.”
Meanwhile, the Minister made it clear that the production by farmers came not as a result of increased acreage, but as a result of higher yields. “We consistently now surpass five tonnes per hectare, that used to be another magical goal that we are now reaching routinely, and we believe that we can reach six tonnes per hectare.”
The Agriculture Ministry is working towards that “because if we can do that, that is another 100,000 tonnes without adding more land, and that would mean that our cost of production would go right down and allow us to compete with other countries on the world market.”
Guyana had two successive years (2011 and 2012) of production of more than 400,000 tonnes of rice. The 412,000 tonnes set for 2012 was surpassed by 10,000 tonnes. A total of 334,000 tonnes were exported, while in 2011, the production was 402,000 tonnes.
New rice varieties and management strategies such as the six-point practices have been credited for higher yields of rice. Guyana has also managed to gain a major market in neighbouring Venezuela in an oil-for-rice deal.
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