AGRICULTURE Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy has advised that the United States-based (U.S.-based) company SeaRice Caribbean Guyana has successfully acquired the assets of the Mahaicony Rice Mills Limited (MRL) by paying the MRL $495 million and undertaking to pay off MRL’s debts owed to the Guyana Government and to rice farmers. Payments to some 116 farmers will shortly commence.

SeaRice Operations Manager, Mr. Mohamed Ali, during a news conference yesterday, indicated that approximately $54 million in debts will be paid to rice farmers, starting today on the Corentyne, and on Thursday on the Essequibo Coast.

Ali said the company hopes to start purchasing paddy from as early as next Monday, in order to commence operations as early as possible; and although SeaRice is not yet in possession of a licence to operate, the government, particularly the Agriculture Ministry and the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB), have promised to facilitate issuance of a licence once all liabilities have been liquidated.

Ali declared that SeaRice has already paid off its liability to the government, and will also soon have paid off that owing to farmers; hence the company is in the process of applying for that licence. He stressed that the company should have no problems acquiring same.

Meanwhile, General Manager (GM) of SeaRice, Doug Chappels, explained that the U.S.-based company is taking over the assets of MRL, and not the rice mill in Mahaicony. He advised that SeaRice is not investing in that rice mill for one simple reason — because it is far too close to the Fairfield Rice Mill, which is partly owned by the same company, and that could cause a conflict-of-interest situation to develop.
“We are not taking over any of the obligations of that mill, and we are not making any investment in Mahaicony Rice Mill,” he stated. Instead, the company is investing in the mills at Black Bush Polder and at Number 71 Village on the Corentyne, and at Vilvoorden and Paradise villages on the Essequibo Coast.

Chappels also noted that although SeaRice would operate a totally integrated system, it would not be growing its own paddy, but would instead seek to purchase paddy from farmers at competitive prices.

He related that SeaRice has set a production target of 20,000 tonnes of rice per crop per each location. Its main market is Venezuela, but the company would also be exporting to Europe and Jamaica.

The GM emphasised that the former situation involving MRL and rice farmers would not be allowed to occur with SeaRice. He pointed out that SeaRice has owned 50 percent of Fairfield Rice Mill for some 14 years, and there has never been any such issue.