Essequibo farmers awaiting payment picket GRDB
SEVERAL farmers on the Essequibo Coast are calling for paddy shipments to Venezuela to begin now, so that they can get their long awaited payments. Armed with placards, they staged a picketing demonstration at Anna Regina near the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) to air their frustrations over the issue.
The demonstrators said they sold their produce two months ago to the Essequibo Farmers Group and are in need of their money to sow their fields and buy fertiliser for the current crop.
However, General Secretary of Rice Producers Association (RPA), Mr. Dharamkumar Seeraj explained, to the protesters, the strict requirements of the Venezuelan Government for quality paddy from Guyana.
He told them that Venezuela wants good quality paddy and rice and will pay top prices for them.
Seeraj said the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) is the contracted party on behalf of government to ship rice and paddy to Venezuela because the country deals with the purchase on a government to government basis and not with private companies.
He pointed out that the Venezuelan market is very important to Guyana’s rice industry because more than half of the paddy produced locally goes to Venezuela.
Crisis
Seeraj warned that, if the Venezuelan market is lost, the Guyanese rice industry will be in crisis and urged that quality paddy be produced for export to Venezuela.
Speaking about the current situation farmers are facing in Essequibo, he said they sold their paddy to the Farmers Group and now some of it cannot be exported because of not meeting the specifications.
GRDB General Manager, Mr. Jagnarine Singh said three shipments were already sent to Venezuela, including 1,000 tons of paddy from Essequibo.
But he cautioned that GRDB will not send bad quality grains to any export market.
Singh said a sum of $18M is expected to be available, for payment to some farmers, by Tuesday.
According to him, about 4,000 tons of paddy are to be exported to Venezuela from Essequibo.