Lo­cal rice pro­duc­tion dropped from 21,000 met­ric tonnes in 1992 to just 585 met­ric tonnes last year, a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) chaired by An­tho­ny Viera heard from Na­tion­al Flour Mills (NFM) chair­man Nigel Ro­mano yes­ter­day.

Ro­mano, who gave a break­down of the quan­ti­ty of rice pro­duced in tes­ti­mo­ny be­fore the JSC on State En­ter­pris­es, said in 1992 NFM pur­chased ap­prox­i­mate­ly 21,200 met­ric tonnes of pad­dy from farm­ers. By 2013, the fig­ure plum­met­ed to 2,859 met­ric tonnes, then to 1,893 met­ric tonnes in 2015 and last year, NFM bought just 585 met­ric tonnes.

Grade one pad­dy fetch­es $2.99 per kg, while farm­ers col­lect $2.85 per kg for grade two. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 34,000 met­ric tonnes is con­sumed in T&T an­nu­al­ly. NFM CEO Kelvin Ma­habir ad­mit­ted that the com­pa­ny’s rice mill at Carlsen Field is op­er­at­ing at 15 per cent ca­pac­i­ty be­cause of in­suf­fi­cient pad­dy. In an­swer to a ques­tion from JSC mem­ber Fazal Karim, Ma­habir said “95 per cent ends up as in­put in­to an­i­mal feed, while five per cent is used for hu­man con­sump­tion. Karim said those watch­ing the meet­ing on tele­vi­sion would con­clude “that there is a de­lib­er­ate at­tempt by NFM to close down the rice in­dus­try.”(stabroeknews)…[+]