GRDB: Rice exports up despite low prices

Nov 13, 2015 News

– exporters have commitment for 220,000 tonnes

As worry continues to mount over markets for rice, authorities have announced that private exporters have commitments for 220,000 tonnes over the next few months.
To date, there has been a six percent increase in rice exports for 2015 in comparison to the same time period last year, reports General Manager (ag) of the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB), Nizam Hassan.
Statistics for 2015 show 437,448 tonnes of rice being exported in comparison to 412,220 tonnes for the same period last year.
With just two months remaining in 2015, Hassan, in a statement issued, was confident that 2015 will be another successful year for the industry.

GRDB’s General Manager (ag), Nizam Hassan

“We are very confident that the exports of rice and rice products will pass 2014’s fare.”
Venezuela, following the discovery of oil by US-owned ExxonMobil earlier this year, restated its claims on two-thirds of Essequibo as well as a part of the maritime areas, including the area where the well was drilled.
That neighbouring country has also told the Government of Guyana that it was not renewing a rice-for-oil pact it had, beyond this month. Guyana had been taking oil under the PetroCaribe arrangement and paying with rice and paddy, for over five years now. It had left the new Government scrambling to find new markets.
According to Hassan, GRDB is assuring rice farmers that their paddy will be sold, and that measures will be put in place to ensure they are paid in a timely manner.
“The GRDB has a responsibility to ensure, support and encourage millers to pay their farmers. However, it is largely a private arrangement, but because of the law that exists, millers have 42 days to pay their farmers.”
He assured that as regulators, GRDB and Government will continue to be proactive in their roles in ensuring rice farmers are paid in a timely manner.
However, in highlighting the challenges farmers face in receiving payment, Hassan explained that many millers had purchased paddy with the expectation of receiving higher prices than they are currently receiving.
“When Guyana was exporting to Venezuela we were getting US$780 per tonne of white rice,” Hassan pointed out. The price previously offered by Venezuela is double that of the world market price which averages at US$390 per tonne.
Presently Guyana has agreed to sell its white rice between US$335 to US$400 per tonne while parboiled rice sells for as much as US$600 per tonne.
It is true also that Guyana’s rice yield has been significantly increasing in recent years, raising the problem of finding new markets for the extra rice.
For the first half of 2015, Guyana’s production is recorded as 359,960 tonnes – a 15.3 per cent increase from last year’s record high first-half production of 312,283 tonnes.
There were problems also with the lucrative Venezuelan market.
In July of this year, GRDB officials visited and discovered that there were 876 containers – two shipments – of Guyana’s rice that had not been removed from the wharf. The backlog of Guyana’s rice on Venezuela’s wharf was cleared four months after.
“As Guyana’s rice farmers continue to produce bumper crops it is government’s mandate to facilitate the provision of additional rice markets. Additional markets will ensure that rice farmers are paid for the rice they produce in a timely manner.
GRDB continues to work closely with all stakeholders to ensure there is no undue disruption to rice exports and unnecessary hardships endured to rice farmers.”
With thousands of farmers in all three counties involved in rice, the worries have been many. From low prices to storage to proper access roads and late payments from millers, farmers are now contending with low water levels as a result of the current El Nino weather conditions.