RICE harvesting has commenced in the Pomeroon-Supenaam Region and from all indications, farmers are expecting a bumper harvest.

Harvesting has commenced in the south of the coast in villages such as Aberdeen, Golden Fleece, Perseverance, Colombia and Affiance. When this newspaper visited several backdams, rice farmers were busy harvesting. Harvesters were in fields with tractors and trucks waiting to transport the harvest.

Farmers are utilising the hot sunny weather conditions which are favourable for them. Several dams leading to rice lands were also upgraded by the Region Two Administration, creating better farm-to-market access roads.

Farmers related that the prices for a bag of paddy have not been decided but popular rice mills are accepting their paddy.

“We don’t know the price as yet, we carrying it to mills that are accepting, that is, normal but we are hoping that we get more than last year,” farmer, Deleep Persaud said.

Persaud related that last year he received $2,800 for a bag of paddy. Persaud has been into rice cultivation for some 25 years.

Minister Holder had said Region Two is the third-largest rice-producing region in Guyana, producing 14 per cent of paddy production annually. In 2019, 2,400 farmers cultivated 63,812 acres over the two cropping seasons, producing 2.3M bags of rice and 146,454 tonnes of paddy.

He has noted that the yields per acres have also moved from an average of 28 bags per acre to 37 bags or from 4.5 tonnes per hectare to 5.7 tonnes per hectare.
Minister Holder, in an earlier interview with the Guyana Chronicle, had explained that the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) conducted paddy bug control activities in Region Two in 2019, assisting farmers with the control of paddy bugs.
Six hundred and fifty-seven farmers cultivating 12,690 acres benefitted from the assistance during the first crop of 2019.
During the second crop of 2019, dams and meres were sprayed to control the spread of paddy bugs. The GRDB has spent GYD$8.3M in the National Paddy Bug Eradication Programme in 2019.
“Under the decentralisation of the seed paddy production, the programme, 24 acres were sown to produce quality seed paddy by farmers, the project aimed at producing 840 bags of seed paddy, this is an important initiative as we aim for a more sustainable rice industry, the programme will save farmers $756,000 in transportation and handling cost,” minister said.