Kindly permit me space in your news outfit to express my dissatisfaction with the labelling of the seed paddy being sold to farmers by the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) Burma Rice Research Station.
The seeds do not have the requisite labels with the necessary information on the bag. The bags have somethings written on it with a marker. Anyone can write anything on the bags once they have a marker and dupe the farmers.
This have been happening for some time now. The Allegation is that the leadership of Burma Rice Research Station chooses to bypass this step in the processing and packaging of the seed paddy for the reason of passing off low quality seed paddy and paddy that does not fully meet the required standards to farmers.
Farmers who purchase paddy from the Burma Rice Research Station in the last crop can absolutely corroborate the fact of the quality of paddy received.
Time has come for the GRDB Board and the Minister of Agriculture to take steps to ensure that the seed paddy sold to farmers meet the quality standards before being sold and seed labells must be stitched within the lid of the bags with the essential information (year and season grown, class of seed, variety, weight, percentage of purity, percentage of other crop seeds, percentage of inert matter, percentage of weed seeds, origin , percentage of germination, date tested etc) so that farmers can know that what they are paying for is what they getting in the bag and they are not buying ‘pig in a bag’ like in the last few crops.
The seed quality standard protocol that oversees the labeling of seeds is one that is known and being used by seed production agencies in other parts of the globe and must be adopted here in Guyana.
Your faithfully,
Terry Ross
