Farmers to be compensated for poorly germinating GRDB paddy – Minister

Farmers across the country who have been facing challenges with poor germination of the high-yielding GRDB 10 variety paddy will be compensated.
This is after the Agriculture Ministry conducted an investigation into this occurrence, which showed a trend between both paddy produced by the Guyana Rice Development Board and contracted growers.

Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha on Friday noted during a press conference that complaints have been pouring in from rice cultivators, sharing their concerns over the fact that this variety has not been germinating. He said it has been detected with seeds produced both at the GRDB stations and through contracted growers.
“Farmers have been [having] problems with it. I have received complaints from as far as Essequibo. I have already given instruction that we have to ensure that we compensate those farmers and ensure that we replace those seeds to get proper seedlings. The other varieties, however, we have not received any complaints,” Mustapha expressed.

He noted that many persons have chosen the GRDB 10 because of its high yielding characteristic. However, he pointed towards the GRDB 16 variety – which has the “highest potential” in Guyana.
“The GRDB 10 is a high yielding variety. That is why most farmers are trying to get this variety. Not only GRDB 10 has this problem, those farmers who were contracted and who grew their own paddy have been having this problem…I want to encourage farmers to use that variety (GRDB 16). I think that variety has the highest potential in our country.”

The Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) produces approximately 25,000 bags of seed paddy annually at the Rice Research Station at Burma, Mahaicony, and another 5000 bags using contracted growers. Farmers purchase seeds from GRDB and also produce seeds. The Board produces seeds for 12 varieties.
Apart from GRDB 10, it posited that all other varieties showed good germination. This specific variety was released in 2009, since then slow germination was noted by the researchers and farmers. Consequently, the Board has been working towards developing new rice varieties with excellent germination and seedling vigour in the field. To this end, the newer varieties, namely: GRDB 14, GRDB 15, GRDB 16 have achieved this feat.

“GRDB 10 has always required that the conditions favouring germination; moisture, heat, oxygen are optimum. Even when optimum conditions are met, the variety, GRDB 10, sometimes show slow/poor germination. It is important to note that timely harvesting of seeds, proper drying and storage affect germination of seed in general,” the Ministry said in a subsequent statement.
Optimum conditions for germination are a temperature range of 28-340C, free flow of oxygen, moisture. They are advising farmers to soak the GRDB 10 seeds for 18-24 hours and press in small pieces for 36 to 54 hours.

“The GRDB officers are working closely with farmers, providing technical advice to towards better germination. All farmers who purchased seeds from GRDB which showed poor germination will have their seed stock being replaced, after verification.”
To protect against genetic vulnerability, cultivators are advised not to have one variety covering majority acreages of the country.

“The GRDB 10 became the most popular variety because of its high yielding ability. The GRDB has always advised farmers to have a diverse varietal preference in the farms, thus its continued research work in developing newer higher-yielding varieties. The new variety GRDB 16 has the potential of actually becoming the preferred variety, especially since it addresses the issues found in earlier varieties and is of different genetic composition than the GRDB 10,” it also added.