Guyana’s Oil Fund Holds $4bn. Its Rice Farmers Got $1,725 Each

Agriculture

Guyana rice farmers in one coastal region collected cheques worth just under one million dollars this week, handed out by the agriculture minister at a track and field centre in Leonora. The country’s sovereign wealth fund held close to four billion dollars at the end of May.

The arithmetic of that sentence is the whole story of what oil has and has not done for Guyana. Five hundred and sixty growers shared two hundred and one million Guyanese dollars, working out at roughly seventeen hundred dollars each.

The payment was announced by Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha, who gave the precise figures: 560 farmers, 15,636 acres cultivated last crop. Those with fifty acres or fewer receive fifteen thousand Guyanese dollars an acre, larger growers ten thousand.

In American money the smaller tier amounts to about seventy-two dollars an acre. It is a real sum in rural Guyana and a rounding error in the national accounts.

Why Guyana rice farmers need the money

This is not a windfall being shared. It is a patch over a hole.

Paddy is unmilled rice, sold by the bag, and its price has fallen off a cliff. Millers paid about four thousand Guyanese dollars a bag in 2023 and now pay around two thousand five hundred, a drop of nearly two-fifths.

The cause sits far from Georgetown. India, Vietnam and other giants harvested record crops and unloaded record stockpiles, and the weighted world price of white rice slid from more than seven hundred dollars a tonne to somewhere near four hundred.

The pressure has been building for more than a year. Growers protested over paddy prices in Black Bush Polder in 2025, and by April this year Kaieteur News reported farmers staging fresh protests, with some in Region Two saying they were paid still less than the quoted range.

Growing more, earning less

The bind is that the industry is growing while its income shrinks. National production has climbed from roughly five hundred and fifty thousand tonnes in 2020 to a record eight hundred and twenty-five thousand last year.

The first crop of this year alone delivered more than four hundred and fourteen thousand tonnes. Mustapha expects the annual record to fall again.

More rice into a glutted market fetches a lower price, so the better the harvest the worse the return. Guyana is climbing an escalator that is moving down.

The government has already spent its cheaper instruments. It waived the export commission millers pay the state rice board, removed duties on machinery and chemicals, and subsidised fertiliser.

What the oil money is not doing

Set the two sums side by side. The entire national rice grant runs to about thirteen million dollars, spread over five regions.

Guyana banked close to two billion dollars of oil revenue in the first six months of this year. The rice programme is therefore worth under one percent of a single half-year of petroleum receipts.

That comparison is ours, drawn from two separate official disclosures rather than a government statement. It is a measure of scale, not an accusation of anything.

Still, it frames the question every petrostate eventually faces. The International Monetary Fund has warned Guyana about Dutch disease, the pattern in which a resource boom lifts costs and squeezes every industry that is not the resource.

Rice is the test case. It employs thousands, feeds the Caribbean, and earns foreign exchange that does not depend on a barrel price.

Where Guyana rice farmers go next

The minister’s answer is markets rather than money. He has talked of Mexico and Haiti, hopes for larger quotas from Jamaica and Saint Lucia, and mentions future openings in Cuba.

Europe still takes a large share of Guyanese rice but pays less than Caribbean or North American buyers. Diversifying away from it is the strategy, and it is slow work.

For a foreign investor the signal is not the cheque but the choice behind it. A government with billions in a New York account is subsidising its farmers at seventy-two dollars an acre rather than restructuring the industry that sets their price.

Watch whether the next intervention touches the millers, who buy the paddy and set what the grower is paid. That, rather than another round of cheques, would tell you the state intends to fix the market instead of cushioning it.

How much did Guyana rice farmers actually receive?

In Region Three, 560 farmers shared just over two hundred and one million Guyanese dollars, close to nine hundred and sixty-six thousand American dollars, or about seventeen hundred dollars each on average. The national programme totals roughly two point seven six billion Guyanese dollars, near thirteen million American dollars, across five regions.

Why have paddy prices fallen so far?

Major producers including India and Vietnam brought record harvests and large stockpiles to market, creating a global glut. The weighted world price of white rice fell from above seven hundred dollars a tonne to around four hundred, and Guyanese millers cut what they pay growers accordingly.

Is rice still important to Guyana’s economy?

Yes. Production has grown by about half since 2020 and reached a record eight hundred and twenty-five thousand tonnes last year, making Guyana a significant supplier to Caribbean markets and a central part of the government’s food security agenda.