AGRICULTURE Minister, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy will be meeting with rice millers from across the country today to enquire into the prices they have been offering farmers for paddy purchased, as some farmers are still dissatisfied with the prices being paid.

Speaking with this publication in an interview at his Regent Road office yesterday, Minister Ramsammy stressed that transactions between farmers and millers are private, and while the government may intervene at times, its control of the situation is limited.

He pointed out that one mechanism government uses to control the millers is access to the preferred market, which is given only to millers who comply with all the necessary requirements.

He noted that farmers sometimes take loans or borrow equipment and other items from millers with the understanding that relevant charges would be discounted from payments due them for paddy sold to the millers; and in this way, they become indebted to the millers, hence they cannot shop around for better prices.

Dr Ramsammy said that, as incumbent Agriculture Minister, he is in discussion with government to establish some mechanism to grant farmers short-term loans, such as an agricultural bank. With such a mechanism, he said, farmers will not have to access loans from millers, and therefore will not be beholden to them, and can be able to shop around and bargain for better prices.

He disclosed that government is currently paying off farmers what the millers owe them, and then discounting those amounts from what is due the millers.

A group of farmers from the Cane Grove/Mahaica area had informed the Guyana Chronicle on Sunday that they had planned to protest the low paddy prices; but an organiser of the protest informed this newspaper yesterday that that activity has been called off.

Minister Ramsammy said some millers had been using the excuse that the Venezuela-Guyana rice agreement had not been signed, but “I had an agreement with them that they will pay the lower price, but it’s not the final price; and it will be adjusted when Venezuela comes on board. Some of the millers have not been adjusting,” he said.

The minister explained that not all the paddy or rice produced in Guyana is sold to Venezuela, currently Guyana’s largest rice importer and offering preferential prices for Guyana’s rice; but instead of paying farmers according to where the rice is going, the millers strike an average price across the board, and this is the bone of the farmers’ contention.

And in a telephone interview with this reporter, General Secretary of the Guyana Rice Producers Association (RPA), Mr. Dharamkumar Seeraj, said he had met with farmers at Bush Lot, West Coast Berbice last Thursday and had given them opportunity to raise their concerns.

He said the RPA had expected millers exporting rice to Venezuela would have maintained the price of $4,000 per bag of ‘A’ grade paddy, but some millers are paying $3,500 per bag for that grade.

Seeraj said he met again with farmers from the Cane Grove/ Mahaica area on Monday, and they are currently trying to negotiate with the millers as a collective in order to obtain better prices; but prices on the European market have dropped, and this may affect farmers’ chances of obtaining better prices from the millers, since Guyana does export rice to Europe as well.

In addition, he said, some millers proposed paying $3,500 as an average price per bag of paddy to compensate for damaged grains.