Rice farmers on the Corentyne in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) who have been affected by the paddy bug infestation are calling on Government to provide some form of assistance to enable them to go into the next crop.
Some of the farmers have had to dump their paddy after millers rejected it because of the poor quality resulted from the paddy bug infestation; the worst in decades according to some farmers.
Some of the dumped paddy
When the crop started, farmers were forced to pump water after the regional administration lacked fuel to operate the four pumps in the Black Bush Polder. This was followed by the blockage of the Seaforth Canal, which created more difficulty for some farmers.
Mahindra Singh of Number 46 Village, who cultivated 35 acres of rice, said his loses are about 60 per cent of his crop. “We had a massive infestation of paddy bugs and the paddy was rejected by the mill and some was left in the field.”
He added that what the mill rejected, he had to dump, adding that as it stands there is no alternative. “I can’t go back into the next crop.”
The quality of rice being produced by the poor quality paddy
Singh is considered a small-scale farmer but his loses are estimated at $1.5 million owing to the fact that extra funds were used to supply insecticides for the paddy sucking bugs.
Meanwhile, another farmer, Chatterpaul Balram, who cultivated 120 acres at Bushlot Corentyne, explained that the problems commenced shortly after the sewing of the paddy.
He explained that 20 acres were destroys after applying the first application of fertiliser. “No water, all the water dry up,” the farmer said. At that time, he said he contacted officials from the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB).
“Since then I haven’t seen them back… Now harvesting time is paddy bug. I cut one truck load paddy and had to dump it.”
Chatterpaul Balram cultivated 120 acres
In an effort to protect his rice crop from the destructive bugs, Balram said he applied insecticides more than 20 times, causing an additional burden on his financing.
“All the type of drugs you could think of I use; still yet 60 per cent damage.”
According to Balram, he invested $7 million into the crop. Counting by the truck load, he was hoping to collect about $500,000 per load but in fact because of the poor grading of his paddy, he was only paid at an average of $150,000 per truck load.
However, this has not stopped him from going into the next crop. He has already commenced plowing the land, preparing it for the next crop.
Mahindra Singh had to dump all his paddy
“I am not giving up,” the 56-year-old rice farmer who has been farming since the age of 11, said.
“I just waiting to see what the GRDB will do… If they will assist us with seed paddy or fertiliser or something,” he added.
Another farmer, Julius Singh, who cultivated 100 acres at Cromarty and 60 acres at Kilmarnock, told Guyana Times that the bugs had a feast on his rice despite all of the extra efforts he put in to keep them out.
Now he has not been able to clear expenses from the last crop.
Julius Singh does not know if he will be able to get into the next crop
“Onto now, I owe some people. People feel that you don’t want to pay them,” the farmer said. Singh is not sure if he will be able to go into the next crop. “You don’t have the money, how you gon turn over,” he said.
Singh showed this publication grading slips from a local mill which indicated that his rice was graded as substandard.
“Forty per cent, 60 per cent, 80 per cent damaged; the paddy not good and rice costing real money to plant. I don’t know what farmers will do this crop. If we could get some assistance from anywhere, we will be grateful,” he lamented.
According to Singh, he is hoping that the authorities at the GRDB will step in and assist the farmers with fertiliser and seed paddy so that they can go back into the next crop.
He noted that as rice farmers they provide foreign exchange for the country and in times like these, the Government should step in and provide assistance.
“I never experience nothing like this with paddy bug. We would see paddy bug which we call “Gandi” but not this much. When you in the field, they hold on on your clothes like if Africanised bees take you over,” he explained.
Farmers have reported that the yield was good considering they reaped between 35-40 bags per acre. However, this is subjected to the high percentage loss as a result of the paddy bug infestation.
“When you feel that the rice bear good this crop, you can’t get no money off of it because when you go to the other side and reach the mill and they grade your rice is nothing; you stand up right there and see the paddy grade,” one farmer noted.
Rice Producers Association Field Officer, Ramlagan Singh, said more than 30 farmers in the region had all of their paddy rejected and they were forced to dump it; some on the roadside and others on the beach.
He added that most of the paddy was not even fit for birds or animals.
