Second highest production on record
Highest production for Region 6
With a final count of 1,049,874 metric tonnes (mt) of paddy, just 8,254 tonnes short of the 2015 record production of 1,058,128 mt. 2019 stands as the second highest rice producing year to date.
Guyana managed to produce this record amount of rice despite a number of challenges including extremely unfavourable weather conditions and some pest infestation. These challenges were taken head on by the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB), who spared no effort in ensuring that the extension and support services meted out to their rice farmers were superior.
Despite this, some prominent persons and various sections of the media would have it be believed that rice is failing, despite 2019 being almost a record breaking year. Not only was production in 2019 close to surpassing the 2015 national record but production has increased 28% since 2016 as well. This is possible not only by the efforts extended by the GRDB but also by the hard work of our farmers.
Region 5 remains the highest producing region, harvesting 454,476 mt of paddy (295,409 mt rice equivalent) at a 99% harvesting rate. Second to Region 5 is Region 6 with a total of 311,915 mt of paddy (202,745 mt rice equivalent). As such region 5 stands as the highest rice producing region for 2019.
It is worth noting that as it relates to region 6, last year’s production is the highest ever for the region since it began paddy production. Region 6 produced 4,910,444 bags of paddy. This equates to a 25% increase in Paddy production for Region 6.
Overall a total of 16,528,024 bags of paddy (a rice equivalent of 682,418 mt) was produced. 178,628 hectares were sown, with an average yield of 93 bags of rice per hectare (38 bags of rice per acre).
