IT has been another successful year for our rice industry as the target of 400,000 tonnes of rice would be achieved and would be Guyana’s highest ever production.
The last crop, the 2011 spring crop, targeted 4.4 million bags of paddy, but produced 202,077 metric tonnes, or 4,894,270 bags paddy.
The 2010 rice sector production of 360,996 tonnes was a record, but this year’s production of 379,628 tonnes will surpass that record by 4.9 percent increase in value added.
According to the RPA General Secretary, the prices so far are relatively stable, with the Venezuelan markets being Guyana’s most lucrative for rice and paddy.
“Venezuela remains our best market,” he said.
Guyana has already shipped some 160,000 metric tonnes of rice to Venezuela for this year, and at the moment, Venezuela is the largest importer of rice from Guyana.
The current trade agreement, the fourth consecutive one, is valued at some US$48M for the export of 30,000 tonnes of white rice and 50,000 tonnes of paddy, at US$800 and US$480 respectively per metric tonne. Seeraj said, “We are still maintaining our traditional markets in Europe, Jamaica and other Caribbean islands.”
Guyana has exported almost 46,000 tonnes of rice to Jamaica, and more than 20,000 tonnes of rice to Trinidad; while the EU has imported almost 50,000 tonnes of Guyana rice so far for 2011.
The RPA General Secretary maintains that the various interventions and the initiatives have been piloted by the current administration to ensure sustained performance by the sector.
The continued development and growth of our industry is not surprising because it is a reflection of the visionary and sound agricultural policies and programmes that have been effectively implemented by the government through the Ministry of Agriculture and its various agencies.
In fact the history of this country will show that under all People’s Progressive Party (PPP) led governments the agriculture sector excelled. During the 1957-1964 period rice production increased by an unprecedented 74%. It was during this period that a solid foundation for agriculture was laid with the opening up of the Black Bush Polder, Tapacuma and Mahaica/Mahaicony/Abary agricultural schemes.
The success of agriculture was so great that the then opposition dubbed the government in a derogative manner a “rice and coolie” government.
It was most unfortunate that this solid foundation was undermined and destroyed under the new government which took office in 1964. This destruction continued for 28 years bringing the agriculture sector to a near collapse. When rice farmers protested about poor prices and a lack of support from the government, dogs were unleashed on them.
However, under successive PPP led governments since 1992 the rice industry has bounced back with great vigour. Thanks to the tremendous work that has been done in drainage and irrigation, research and development of new varieties of rice, duty free concessions for agricultural machinery and fuel and the resilience and the hard work of our farmers.
At the current rate of growth of the rice industry production of 500,000 tonnes of rice annually should not be far off. When this is achieved it would be another great period for rice farmers, the agriculture sector and the national economy.