The myth of pampering the rice sector

Sep 26, 2025 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – There is a familiar chorus that surfaces every so often in Guyana’s national discourse. It says that government is pampering the rice sector.

The refrain is sung with such conviction that one might believe rice farmers are the only beneficiaries of state support. But nothing could be further from the truth. If the rice sector is being “pampered,” then by the same measure, the bauxite and gold mining industries have been coddled and cosseted for decades, enjoying far more generous concessions, tax breaks, and preferential treatment.

Let us strip away the hypocrisy. Those who cry foul at subsidies to rice are often strangely silent when it comes to the gold and bauxite sectors. Mining concessions have included duty-free imports of heavy machinery; tax holidays to medium and large-scale miners; royalty adjustments; and in some cases, outright leniency on compliance. The state has long bent over backwards to ensure that miners—large and small, foreign and local—are cushioned against market fluctuations. We even at one stage had a sliding scale royalty based on the price of gold on the world market.

The oil companies, for their part, have received concessions that go beyond generous; they are overtly overgenerous, locking Guyana into agreements that are tilted so heavily in favour of the oil majors that even seasoned international observers have expressed disbelief. Yet the loudest voices against “pampering” rice farmers have had nothing to say about the windfalls and giveaways to oil companies.

This is where the double standard becomes glaring. Rice has been an economic lifeline for Guyana. It is not a new kid on the block. It is not a speculative industry. It is a backbone crop, as much a part of rural Guyana as the air and the creeks. Like sugar, rice is vital to rural economies. It sustains entire communities, providing livelihoods directly to tens of thousands of farmers, millers, and labourers, and indirectly to transporters, input suppliers, and shopkeepers in villages from Essequibo to Berbice. The sector is a large employer, a foreign exchange earner, and a stabiliser for rural life. To undermine rice is to undermine a whole social structure.

And yet, the sector is being asked to operate in a world that is often unforgiving. Critics like to advance the notion that Guyana should simply stockpile rice until the world market price improves. Such armchair economics ignores the realities of farming. Millers and farmers do not have the financial latitude to sit on unsold grain, waiting for some mythical price surge. Stockpiling requires vast storage facilities, pest control, financing arrangements, and other costly investments that are simply unaffordable. To expect small and medium farmers to behave like multinational corporations is to ignore the lived reality of rural Guyana.

That said, government support is not unconditional. Farmers themselves must remain efficient and competitive. There is no room for complacency. Current estimates suggest that even at a selling price of $2,800 per bag, farmers can break even, provided yields rise from the traditional 30 bags per acre to 40 bags per acre. The state has already shouldered many of the burdens. Fuel is subsidised. Fertiliser is duty-free and is in many instances being distributed free of cost to farmers. Drainage and irrigation—an expensive and indispensable requirement for rice cultivation—are largely borne by the state. These are not minor concessions; they are major inputs into the cost structure of rice farming.

The responsibility now falls on the sector to lift its productivity. Improved yields are not an impossible target. With better agronomic practices, new varieties, and more efficient management, moving from 30 to 40 bags per acre is more than achievable. If farmers cannot break even at $2,800 per bag given these supports, then the hard question must be asked: is the sector viable in its present form? For government’s backing to continue, the sector must demonstrate adaptation.

But calling for efficiency is not the same as withdrawing support. No one seriously suggests that mining should be abandoned when gold prices dip or that oil drilling should cease when crude falls below $40 a barrel. The state steps in, whether through tax concessions or fiscal adjustments to tide those sectors over. Why then should rice—the most rooted, most socially embedded, and most historically significant industry—be treated differently?

To brand rice as pampered is to misunderstand its role in the national fabric. It is not a luxury crop; it is a livelihood crop. It is a cultural crop. It is part of what makes Guyana’s agriculture sector both robust and diversified. And in a country where rural communities often feel left behind, rice has offered continuity and survival.

The challenge is not whether to support rice but how to ensure that support translates into long-term competitiveness. Investment in research, better extension services, and incentives for yield improvement must accompany subsidies. Farmers must recognize that state support is not a permanent crutch but a ladder—one that should help them climb towards greater efficiency.

In the end, the debate about “pampering” is a false one. Rice is not pampered; it is supported, much as mining and oil are supported, though often with far less generosity. The difference is that rice returns its benefits not to foreign shareholders but to the villages of Guyana, to the small farmer, to the rural household. That is an investment worth defending.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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• pampering, Peeping Tom, rice, rice sector

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