Rice farmers are being exploited by the millers
Dear Editor, The Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) is supposed to be a very vibrant government watchdog agency with the rice industry. Its board members have a wide range of responsibilities and authority in the general operations of the industry, but for some time now they have become toothless poodles in the real series of this adage, by not doing the things they were put there to do. There is a lot of empty rhetoric and very little action. This organization has sat and allowed most of the rice millers of this country to violate the Factories Act for too long. I refuse to sit and allow this exploitation dalliance to go on any longer.
We all know that the millers are very important people and their operations are essential components in the paddy processing and rice production business, but this notwithstanding must we sit idly by and allow a special breed of cunning exploiters to destroy firstly the livelihood of all rice farmers, secondly the entire rice industry, and thirdly the country’s economy? No! We must not be docile in our resolve to put an end to the millers’ multi-faceted exploitation.
The GRDB has to let the millers know that they are not dealing with rice farmers in the right and proper manner. They have the legal status to do the right and proper thing in the best interest of all stakeholders in this sphere, but why, I ask, have GRDB board members remained so elusive and strikingly passive over this alarming disadvantage affecting all rice farmers? The rice millers owe us their very existence and meaningful expansion. If we cease producing, their milling operations which in the corporate realm are a super investment will come to a standstill, rot and crumble.
In my area of paddy production that is Hague, on the West Coast of Demerara, paddy quality has been exceptionally high. This good fortune has been the result of pest management, especially paddy bugs. All rice farmers followed the advice of GRDB and RPA field officers. I personally sprayed at three different intervals, and the infestation was negligible before spraying, while farmers were very vigilant in their efforts to keep the paddy bugs at bay.
When farmers go this way in order to enjoy the bounty of a very good crop, their expenditure has to be high. Yet when we take our paddy to the rice mills, the millers are poised to put our paddy samples under the microscope for a prearranged ruling on our grades. When such grades are awarded, you do not have a choice; that is it, take it or leave it. Your paddy would have been already dumped into the irretrievable hopper ‒ this is exploitation strategy number one. The other levels of clever manipulations are the laboratory electronic gadgets, the minipaddy sheller and the bulk scale.
Rice farmers are being taken for a long ride on the factory electronic scales; a toothpick does the trick ‒ the Bureau of Standards can’t be there all the time. The same goes for the moisture test machine; it can be set and then reset again. As for the paddy sheller, the grader manipulates this mechanism with his hands, and the unprocessed paddy becomes fragile under excessive pressure. Lastly, the graders’ trained impartial judgement and better reasoning can become clouded by the coded directives of the miller.
The presence of the GRDB representative means nothing; the grader’s decision is always final. The farmer now stands defeated, which is an affront, as a consequence of a strategy on the part of persons who care about themselves only.
Statistically it is costing the average farmer $2800.00-$3200.00 to produce one 155-pound bag of paddy. And the millers pay the famers an unconscionable $2600.00 for extra ‘A’ grade and $100.00 less for each lower grade. I dare the millers and GRDB to come forth and dispute my carefully calculated figures.
I do honestly believe that there are concerted efforts by known characters to destroy the rice industry. We all survived in the past, and we shall again survive because we surely know how to survive.
Yours faithfully, Ganga Persaud