Berbice rice farmers face tough times

May 11, 2015 News

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By Sunita Samaroo

From the time the sun rises to the time of its setting, they toil and hope that the next crop would be better than the last. Their fathers and their father’s fathers did and now, rice farming flows in their veins but as much as they press on, the setbacks are many.
What once meant sustainable profits, now equates hard work to get “little or nothing”. Profits fall way beneath investment and though the burdens are often times too many to bear, they push on: the sons of the soil know Guyana depends on their rice.
The rice industry in Berbice, the largest in the country, is seeing hell and low profits is but one of the many factors that weigh heavily on working to keep it alive.
Jacob Blake, 63, rice farmer and father of five laments “the tax is too high. I’m praying that it goes down. It’s just too much for rice farmers.” He explains that the price for essentials has skyrocketed over the years but that’s no concern for workers who must be paid.

For evidence, countless of Berbice farmers point to lending institutions like IPED, whose front yards commonly feature tractors, combines, grain carts and other vehicles that have been repossessed.
“If you go to Port Mourant, you will see vehicles line up there. Just pass and watch the road corner,” Blake charges as he explains to Kaieteur News that farmers are struggling to make payments on vehicles they took on term payments from various agencies.
“We going through rough times now and it’s not just me, rice farmers want to see lots of changes,” the 63-year-old says, adding that visits from officials are rare but when they do happen, it’s often the same: riddled with promises and seldom any fruit.
“They just want to know your average production to get propaganda. They come for photographs but not to address our worries,” he says.

Blake, a farmer who plants fifty acres of land at West Canje, Berbice, and many others, complain bitterly about the money they receive from millers for their paddy.
Earlier this year, Former Minister of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh announced that the country had finally followed the rest of the region and fuel prices were slashed. However, it wasn’t long before the prices crept back to exorbitant amounts.
“They raise diesel. The price gone back since they say it drop but they not putting that on TV. Manure expensive, drugs expensive, cutting paddy expensive. We’re making next to nothing. Even the transportation cost is too much. We pay about $800 to transport one bag from field to mill. The cost of paddy is a shame,” Blake says.
“A bag of paddy costing about $2800 to produce and we are getting less. We get about $1900 to $2200 and it cannot pay. In 1987, we sold paddy right on this road for $2500 and now we are getting way less,” Randolph Rutherford, a 74-year-old farmer of Manchester, Corentyne, Berbice laments.
“Everything gone up; a bag of fertilizer is $8000 and you got to use about two to three bag for an acre of rice and if you cannot get anything like about $5000 a bag of paddy, we got to stop planting rice,” he said adding that he hopes for a turnaround.
Rutherford, 74, says he was a senior worker in the rice industry. “We used to give encouragement to the farmers to grow rice. We used to give incentives like tractors and all sorts of things, $1000 an acre to plant an acre of rice in those times.”
He was at the time speaking of the system in place for rice farmers back in the 1980s. The incentives helped farmers immensely, Rutherford says. “First you get tractors to plow the rice fields, you get paddy everything. Now you get nothing.”
His wife says too they are making no profit. “You can’t make profit in this business. You’re making nothing from rice right now.”  Rutherford has been farming rice since he was 16.

He harvests 30 acres of rice lands at two Corentyne locations: Manchester and Auchlyne. “If you look at the trench, imagine you could walk over it. We ain’t getting water,” he said adding that numerous complaints to the water authority have bore no fruit.
Duty free fuel, help with fertilizers are some of the areas they are looking for help.  Leroy Andre Welcome, 45 acres of Land at Manchester, said “Things are not in place. It’s tough.”
Jack Campbell, Elverston Village, Corentyne farmer highlighted drainage as the main problem afflicting rice farmers.  He plants 45 acres of land at Manchester.
“Drainage and irrigation is the problem that we have because when we’re ready for water, we ain’t getting the water. Rice is something that you need to get water in the field and out the field. If you’re not getting it, you can’t get the produce you’re looking for in the fields,” he said.
Campbell highlighted the prices attached to manure as another burden. “Right now we’re selling a bag of paddiy for just about $2200 so we can’t really make anything out of that, it’s very hard.”
Campbell has five children and a wife to maintain and to survive, Campbell is also employed in the sugar industry as a cane harvester. “I does really cut cane and plant rice just to survive. I got to survive. If I was depending on the rice alone, what would have happened to my family,” he says.
Another farmer, Rendel Adams said the woes of the others also befall him. “The water really affecting us,” he lamented. He cultivates 75 acres of land.

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