SOME $1.2B will be paid out this week to rice farmers, from the $2.1B in advance payments to millers, leaving only two per cent of farmers to be paid.

Agriculture Minister Dr. Leslie Ramsammy made this disclosure yesterday and reiterated that the sums released are not loans, but payments made earlier, so that millers may pay off farmers.
“A total payment of $1.2B is being made by millers. This would mean that by the end of the year, less than two per cent of payments due to farmers for the 2014 crops will be outstanding,” he said.
Dr. Ramsammy added that all stakeholders are working to ensure that all farmers are fully paid in the “shortest time” possible.
“We have worked with millers and bankers to ensure a more timely payment to farmers, while we are unhappy with the timeliness of payment by millers,” he said.
The Minister stressed too that, in light of the combined Opposition’s criticisms, the payment situation in the rice industry has vastly improved.
He said, “We also acknowledge that while farmers used to wait for more than a year to receive payment, we have now reached a stage where payments are made within the crop…we will not allow the Opposition to create disruption in an industry that continues to serve Guyana outstandingly.”
The Government of Guyana last Wednesday released another $1.5B to assist in paying off rice farmers. At the beginning of last week, Government intervened with about $600M and subsequently released from the Petro Caribe account advance payments for another $1.5B – a total of $2.1B in support for rice farmers.
“This is not new for the Government of Guyana. It is an initiative that we have taken each crop to bring relief. The situation is not perfect and we would continue to work for more timely payments,” Dr. Ramsammy said.
“In spite of the transactions being purely private sector, between private rice farmers and private millers, the Government has intervened on several occasions in each crop to prompt full payment to farmers,” he added.
Rice farmers, as at the start of last week, were owed about $3B; and through Government support, most farmers are expected to be paid in full, leaving a debt of only $1B.
The accumulated sales of paddy by rice farmers to millers amounted to more than $42B for the two crops in 2014, and at the time the monies were released, millers would have paid off more than $39B, more than 93 per cent of the sums owed.