Multimillion-dollar rice mill at Wales Estate in pipeline
A combine harvester in the process of reaping the fourth rice crop at the Wales Estate (Delano Williams photo)
A combine harvester in the process of reaping the fourth rice crop at the Wales Estate (Delano Williams photo)

WITH rice-farming at the Wales Estate continuing to grow as the estate expands its acreage and with two private farmers recently reaping their first crop, the need for establishment of a rice mill at the facility is becoming increasingly clear.

Special Purpose Unit (SPU) Officer in Charge of the Wales Estate, Charles Browne, says those plans are still in the works, with the aim being to do value-added rice. However, it is an investment that will be cost-intensive, so it will take time.

Right now the focus is on increasing the profit margin of the current rice cultivation.
“In the end we will be aiming to set up something right here to mill and market it. That will happen sometime in the future. Right now we’re basically working on expanding our acreage [because] to set up a mill is an expensive thing, as expensive as $250 million to set up a milling and drying facility,” Browne related.

The West Bank of Demerara estate recently began selling its paddy to millers in Mahaicony, as opposed to the ones on the West Bank, so as to get a better profit.

“We used to send to Hack’s on this side of the river, but now we sent some to the other side of the river, at Fairfield in Mahaicony. Right now we just send the paddy and they do the processing and market and ship. We just sell them bags of paddy,” Browne explains
“We choose the mill based on the price they offer and some mills give better prices than others. It may be a bit more to transport it, but the overall thing you still benefit. The mill over here they have a monopoly and they basically price you how they want to price it.”
Yields from the SPU’s rice farms currently range from 23 – 40 bags of paddy per acre, and Browne is optimistic about improvements.

After starting with just over 230 acres, when rice cultivation at the estate first began in 2017, the estate recently expanded its operations to some 510.8 acres as it heads into its fifth crop.

With the expansion Browne said came increased employment, with the estate taking on new tractor operators and field hands.
Browne said there are challenges with transporting and selling the paddy, but the rice cultivation is making much progress. Aside from expanding acreage, the estate recently bought its first rice combine after the last crop was affected by the renting of a combine.

“We purchased a combine because we were getting a difficulty getting the farmers’ combine; they tell you they’re going to come, but by the time they come the crop would’ve gotten over ripe. They don’t always keep their word. We would hire a combine from one of them and it comes late. It happened last crop. So we decided to buy one,” Browne shared.
The next move in asset acquisition, Browne says, is for the estate to get its own lorries to transport the rice paddy to the mills, since some contractors are reluctant with the renting of their lorries.

“At the end of the day you have to own your own stuff; you get difficulties at times when you don’t own your own. The guys that own the combines don’t want to rent you their lorries, they want to rent you their combines and lorry, so eventually we have to get our own lorries. Lorry would be probably be as much as $13 million depending on the type of lorry you want; all like if we want to send stuff across the bridge we can’t use the big lorry, we have to use a smaller lorry about $6 – $7 million,” Browne explained.

Rice cultivation is one of many activities of the diversification programme currently being developed on the over 8,000 acres of lands that supplied cane to the country’s once thriving sugar industry.

Sugar production at the estate ceased in December 2016, and the management of the facility was handed over from the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuco) to the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) Special Purpose Unit (SPU).
NICIL is aiming to cultivate and own an ultimate 1000 acres of rice, while of the private investors who leased lands at the estate, two are also going to be involved in rice-farming.
Browne confirmed that the farmers have begun reaping

“One investor already has 116.7 acres of rice to harvest now. He already planted half of his section, and he’s converting the rest. There’s another [rice farmer] closer to Number 2 Canal, he also harvested some already. He has 438 acres and I think about half of that went under rice and he harvest it out already,” Browne said.
The estate has been assisting private rice farmers and other private investors in converting the lands from the former sugar cane lands.

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