RICE Producers Association (RPA) General Secretary, Mr. Dharamkumar Seeraj, has appealed to farmers to conserve on their expenses as, from all indications, many will operate at a loss this crop.

He explained that the current crop will definitely be tough, mainly because planters started cultivation with high costs and are getting fairly low prices for paddy when compared to last year.

“Farmers are not going to make a profit this crop but, due to the sustainability of their investment, they will be able to weather the storm,” Seeraj posited.

He said farmers who get $3,000 per bag for their paddy will experience some losses but others getting between $2,600 and $2,700 would lose more.

According to him, for farmers to stay afloat, they will have to accept the prevailing challenge and the RPA is there to support them through this difficult period.

Seeraj was optimistic that the coming crop will be better and the road relatively smoother, once the current difficulty is overcome.

He recalled that, in 1997, when the prices for the staple were good, many farmers went into unwise ventures, in sharp contrast to last year which saw sensible, calculated and sustainable investments.

Seeraj said, if the proceeds from the last two seasons were wisely invested, farmers will be able to cope.

Aware of criticism from some quarters, that his organisation is not doing enough for farmers, he contended that tremendous progress has been made over the past decade.

Seeraj emphasised that the evidence is in Regions Two (Pomeroon/ Supenaam), Three (West Demerara/Essequibo Islands) and other rice growing places where the RPA has established its physical presence.

“We have moved from being a mere representative body to an organisation involved in seed production and providing inputs to farmers, as well as actual services such as the clearing of Mahaica and Mahaicony rivers,” he said.

Seeraj said, apart from those interventions, the RPA is building capacity to do much more and declared that the critics have other motives or their own axes to grind.

He said the discontentment over the low paddy prices this harvest is understandable but said anyone looking at the RPA performance over the last decade as against the past five years cannot honestly say that the last 10 years were not the most progressive.

Seeraj said the strides made are direct results of the solid, committed and dedicated RPA team work in all the rice growing locations.

It is not a one man show but a collaborative organisation working with farmers and several international partners.

“We have dryers in place. We provide extension services, inputs, have storage bonds and offices all over the country,” he asserted.