Farmers to be compensated for problematic GRDB seeds

Dec 05, 2020 News

Kaieteur News – Agriculture Minister, Zulfikar Mustapha has given all assurances that farmers who obtained the GRDB 10 paddy variety from the Guyana Rice Development Board and are recording poor germination outcome for the first crop of 2021, can look forward to full compensation.
The Minister gave this commitment following questions from this newspaper during a press conference yesterday at his office. There, the Minister said that he is aware of the germination issues farmers are facing with the seed paddy that was received from GRDB. He noted however, that the same issues would have been experienced with the GRDB 10 variety that some farmers sourced outside of the Board. He noted however, that farmers, once they can show that the seed paddy that is posing difficulties came from GRDB, they will be compensated.
GRDB also released a statement yesterday where similar sentiments were expressed. The Board noted that it produces approximately 25,000 bags of seed paddy annually at the Rice Research Station at Burma, Mahaicony, and another 5,000 bags using contract growers. Kaieteur News understands that farmers purchase seeds from GRDB and also produce seeds.
Furthermore, GRDB said it is known that the variety GRDB 10 has slow germination. In this regard, it said, “GRDB 10 has always required that the conditions favoring germination (moisture, heat, oxygen) are optimum. Even when optimum conditions are met the variety GRDB 10 sometimes shows slow/poor germination. It is important to note that timely harvesting of seeds, proper drying and storage affect germination of seed in general. Optimum conditions for germination are: Temperature (28-34 0C), free flow of oxygen, moisture.”
Currently, the Board said it is advisable to soak the GRDB 10 seeds for 18-24 hours and press in small pieces (to allow good air circulation), for 36 to 54 hours. Further to this, it said that GRDB officers are working closely with farmers, providing technical advice to towards better germination.
Further to this, the body said it would advise farmers to try its other varieties which include GRDB 14, GRDB 15, and GRDB 16. It was keen to note that the new variety GRDB 16 has the potential of actually becoming the preferred variety, especially since it addresses the issues found in earlier varieties and is of a different genetic composition than the GRDB 10.

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