President Irfaan Ali, today assured rice farmers that the Government will continue to make investments to minimize the impact of global challenges to the local rice industry.
Addressing a rice farmers forum this morning, the President said the Government has taken the increased price for fertilizer into consideration along with shipping costs.
He said the Government has already removed taxes associated with the sector and will further absolve cost for anything linked to the rice growing industry.
“So, these are the challenges that we have to face together, and together we have to find solutions and that is why we are here. We want you to know that first of all we are always by your side and we will never leave your side and we will always be here walking this journey with you and this journey requires us to work together, to partner together, make decisions together,” the President noted.
The President said the government has always stood with rice farmers in difficult times and will make further investments to ensure the sustainability of the sector.
“Notwithstanding the many global challenges and of course the global challenges that we had to overcome in 2020, we continue to make enormous investments in rice ensuring that we work in improving the drainage and irrigation, investing in research and development so that your yield can improve and increase and investing infrastructure and part of our programme in the next five years is to address farm-to-market access roads,” the President said.
He said the the Government will be working with rice farmers to ensure improved productivity and to ensure the expansion of the industry. He said among the government’s strategy is to also maximise the lands they work on.
“From then to now we have seen what is taking place with markets and the geopolitical situation around the world, whether it be Cuba, the situation in Venezuela and the Middle East, all of this, when taken into totality, has had tremendous impact on the global system and we cannot escape these global realities, countries that are far richer than us with oil and gas others, they too are faced with similar challenges,” the President noted.
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