A Review Of The Processing Capacity Of Guyana'S Rice Industry

The Guyana rice industry has experienced significant growth over the years to become one of the largest agricultural sub-sectors in Guyana. Over the last decade the industry increased yields from 3.5mt per ha to 5.2mt per ha thus increasing exports from 51,000 mt in 1990 to over 336,000tonnes in 2010. The recent success in the form of increased production due to expanded acreage and increased productivity in the increase yields; have underlined the need to assess our current processing capacity to determine whether it is sufficient to deal with the increasing production. A survey was conducted by means of questionnaires sent to all mills and data was extracted. The country has the ability to take in 13,945mt of paddy per day, however can only dry 13,28lmt per day. This indicates a deficiency in drying capacity, which is more pronounced in regions 4&5 and 3There is a deficiency in storage capacity in the country especially in regions 6 and 3 where productions far exceed storage capacity. There is an absence of the capacity to store paddy for a long term basis (more than a year), as the current system only caters for storage of 3 to 4 months. The milling capacity in the country is 256mt/hr. There is generally a lack of separate storage for finished product, since rice is mostly milled to order and is shipped within 3-4 days.