Farmers protest rice millers’ reduced paddy price in face of high cost of production

Mar 09, 2022 News

---

By Malisa Playter-Harry

Kaieteur News – Dozens of rice farmers on Tuesday protested a decision by rice millers to reduce the price of paddy per tonne, a change they said is “unacceptable” at this time, given the high cost of production for the paddy.
The rice farmers, in an effort to register their displeasure, converged at Lesbeholden, Johanna and Mibicuri, Black Bush Polder with their placards and used their vehicles and agriculture machinery to block the road thus preventing the free flow of traffic for hours.
An ambulance that had just left the Mibicuri Hospital in Black Bush Polder was delayed for a short while before it was allowed to pass with a patient who was being transported to the New Amsterdam Hospital. The situation, which eventually attracted police presence, had dozens of rice farmers demanding that the price for paddy return to what it was.
The price of paddy paid by millers per tonnage was dropped from $70,000 to $65,000 but rice farmers are saying that the cost of production for paddy is extremely high and, as such, a compromise cannot be met at this time to accept $65,000.
The farmers pointed out that the cost of fertiliser alone jumped from $5,000 per bag to $10,600 per bag, plus there was an increase in labour cost, fuel and spraying, all of which helped to compound the situation. According to them, in the end they will lose more if they have to sell at the price the millers have set.
Barbara Felix who plants 45 acres of rice while her husband plants another 45 acres turned up to the protest and was up in arms about the decision made by the millers while highlighting how costly it is to produce. She disclosed that together with reducing the cost millers pay per tonnage of paddy, they have also raised the cost for manure to $10,600 per bag while the seed paddy was raised to $8,000 per bag, up from $5,000.

“We take loan to plant bigger and when we calculate out expenses it is a million and something per acre, so how can we turn out and pay it back and we getting $65,000,” she stressed. The frustrated farmer noted that they (farmers) had engaged a staff from the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) and he informed them that manure was expected to be sold at $13,000 but because of the government’s intervention, it is being sold at a reduced price of $10,600. “So how the government would help us, we need help, because if we are going to harvest 15-acre at over one million dollar so what is it we are making?”
She demanded that the price be returned to $70,000 by the millers and that the price remains that way. “The rich getting richer and poor getting poorer and that is not fair to us,” she quipped. According to the farmer, she utilised two drums of fuel (diesel) for one plot (50 acres) and that ran a cost of $100,000, “this coupled with the increase in seed paddy from $5,000-$8,000, the rise in cost for workmen to throw manure from $25,000 to $40,000 and the price for manure raising from $1,000 – $1,500.” As such the farmer said that the current state of affairs is “unfair.” She stressed that “when you sit down and calculate all that money, plus you gotta pay money to prepare the land if you don’t have a tractor, and that is about $300,000 it comes up to over a million, so it is really unfair.”
Farmers have expressed that they are prepared to renegotiate the price of paddy after this crop but as of now, because of the high cost to produce the paddy, they will protest until they get what is deserved.
Int’l Market price
Up to two days ago, the rice farmers were receiving $70,000 per tonne but with the sudden change to $65,000, they are questioning the move by the millers and have out-rightly rejected the change.

However, Rice Producers Association President and Vice Chairman of GRDB Lekka Rambridge, in a telephone interview, explained that the price started at $55,000-$56,000 a tonne and it went up to $70,000 a tonne. The millers, he said, were paying $70,000 at the beginning of the crop which commenced a week ago but from the previous crop to now, the price for rice tumbled internationally by over $26 per tonne. This, he added, is a set back because “when the millers finish buying paddy, the rice price fall and it maintains the lowness up to now and it hasn’t risen back, that is why the millers couldn’t have done white rice. There was a shortage of bran in the system because nobody could not have bought paddy at that high price and do white rice so taking into consideration the drop in price internationally, and now that you have a big crop on the ground (64,000 acres), the miller now will be forced to do white rice.”
He said too that for the millers to make a profit, the price has to drop.
As it relates to the farmers’ rejection of the millers’ new price due to the high cost of paddy production, Rambridge said that there is nothing the millers can do about that, adding, only the government can assist in that regard.
He pointed out that there are several things that the government can do if it is serious about assisting. Rambridge noted that the export levy can be removed from rice “so the millers now can hand down that levy. It will work out to about $300 a bag per paddy.” He further noted that while they have recognised that the cost of production is high, “the government can source fertiliser at reduce cost to farmers.”
He went on to stress the need for mechanising the industry even as he noted that “the cost to throw a bag of fertiliser is $1,500 while $600 is the cost to spray the rice (a blower). Now all these things add up…government need to recognise that these are costs that can be eliminated or reduced drastically by their intervention.”
Rambridge also recalled that there was a consultation in the past to have the Nand Persaud and Company airstrip licensed so that aerial spraying can commence, but to date “nothing has happened.” He underscored that if the government is skeptical about giving Nand Persaud the green-light to operate, “why then the government not giving an agency like the rice board or the civil aviation department to operate the airstrip so that the airstrip can operate and help to minimise cost in the industry?”
He opined that at this point, there is no compromise as it relates to the price reduction since he believes that the price will fall further (between $55,000 – $60,000 a tonne) and that can even happen within a week or two.
Kaieteur News was informed that the Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha, had a meeting with millers virtually on Tuesday about the price concern but there was no compromise on either side. Additionally, the Regional Chairman, David Armogan and the Vice Chairman, Zamal Hussain met the rice farmers at Tuesday’s protest in an effort to arrive at a consensus. The rice farmers are expected to continue their protest on Wednesday.

---

---