Bert WilkinsonGEORGETOWN, Guyana: A TEAM of observers from Jamaica's Ministry of Industry and Commerce has found a high level of contamination at Guyana's rice mills making their products unfit for export to Kingston.
The team which has just returned from a fact-finding three-day visit to Guyana, report that the infestation problem was largely the result of poor fumigation methods.
Daniel Dawes, chief food storage inspector, and Martin Townsend, senior food storage scientist in the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, who comprised the team, said they looked at 10 of Guyana's larger rice mills and several smaller ones, as well as their export facilities on their ports.
They found a high level of contamination by weevils namely sitophilus, rhizopertha, tribolium. "That has been a major concern for some time," said Mr. Dawes. "Although they fumigate, the methods were found to be largely inadequate. They use the phostoxin tablets but they put them in bags and put only a few small holes so the process is not as effective as it should be. What happens is that the rice comes to Jamaica with weevils even live," he said. "We have had to be fumigating Guyanese rice here in Jamaica."
Mr. Townsend said that several of the mills visited were in deplorable condition.
Minor Taylor, head of Grains Jamaica Limited, local rice millers, said yesterday there have been occasions where rice imported from Guyana was contaminated with live worms. "We have had to hire laboratories to treat rice from Guyana and our main problem has been one of poor quality. Whether it's by infestation or broken grains or whatever, there has always been a quality problem," he said.
For years Jamaica has been one of Guyana's biggest importers of rice, but the two Caribbean Community CARICOM) states have been at loggerheads over imports by Kingston.
Guyanese officials like Rajnarine Singh, general manager of the Guyana Rice Development Board have in recent weeks made it plain that they are suspicious of complaints by Jamaica that rice shipments have quality control problems.
