Poor labeling of seed paddy sold by GRDB’s Burma Rice Research Station

Nov 11, 2016 Letters

Dear Editor,
Kindly permit me space in your newspaper to express my dissatisfaction with the labeling of seed paddy being sold to farmers by the GRDB’s Burma Rice Research Station. The seeds do not have the requisite label with the necessary information on the bag. The bags have some things written on it with a marker. Anyone can write anything on the bags once they have a marker and dupe the farmers.
This has been happening for some time now. The allegation is that the leadership of Burma Rice Research Station chooses to bypass this step in the processing and packaging of the seed paddy for the reason of passing off low quality seed paddy and paddy that does not fully meet the required standards to farmers. Farmers who purchase paddy from the Burma Rice Research Station in the last crop can absolutely corroborate to the fact of the quality of paddy received.
Time has come for the GRDB Board and the Minister of Agriculture to take steps to ensure that the seed paddy sold to farmers meet the quality standards before being sold and seed label must be stitched within the lid of the bags the essential information (Year and Season Grown, Class of seed, Variety, Weight, % Purity, % Other Crop seeds, % Inert matter, % Weed seeds, Origin, % Germination, Date tested etc.) so that farmer can know what they are paying for is what they are getting in the bag and not buying ‘pig in a bag’ like in the last few crop. The seed quality standard protocol that oversees the labeling of seeds is one that is known and being used by seed production agency in other part of the globe and must be adopted here in Guyana.
Terry Ross

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