Planting Rice in Barbados: A Bajan and Guyanese collaboration

We love this story!

It has a lot to teach us… about Caribbean unity… about battling rising food prices… and about new ideas.

Much better than the racism, hatred and xenophobia being pumped out by the slime-brains behind blogs like Barbados Underground.

Life can be better when Caribbean people (in this case Bajans and Guyanese) put our heads together for our own benefit.

Congratulations to Gladstone Gill and Randy Babulal.

Bajan Free Press

http://www.nationnews.com/story/328365646426235.php

Farmer fielding rice
Published on: 5/2/08.

Farmers Gladstone Gill (right) and Randy Babulal, with the rice grown as an experiment.

by TREVOR YEARWOOD

BARBADOS WILL SOON be producing rice. But it won’t be on the vast scale of Guyana – just on a quarter-acre of land.

Encouraged by some tests, local farmer Gladstone “Rudy” Gill is preparing to turn part of his holding at Braggs Hill in St Joseph into a paddy field later this month.

Rice cultivation requires a lot of water, which is one of the reasons why Barbadians don’t plant rice, but Gill says water is no problem for him.

The 44-year-old farmer is tapping a stream which runs through the land, from time to time disappearing in the area’s lush green vegetation.

“I got this idea to plant some rice when I visited Guyana recently and saw how it was grown,” Gill told the WEEKEND NATION.

“I decided I would get some seeds and try my hand, see how it turns out. People say you can’t grow rice in Barbados because you don’t have the water and rice takes a lot of water.”

With the help of Randy Babulal, a 26-year-old Guyanese who was planting rice at age 12 in Berbice on the family’s plantation,
he started the rice operation last January.

It was a totally new experience to the farmer, who up to then associated waterlogged fields with crop damage, including rotting roots and spongy vegetables.

An early problem he encountered was birds – they ate a lot of the seeds which were scattered across the experimental plot.

Another problem was that the water pumped into the field kept draining back into the river.

It meant extra work for the two, considering that rice “has to be in water 60 to 70 days” if one is to get a good crop, said Babulal.

The result was that Gill ended up with a small patch of rice, but nevertheless a healthy-looking crop which will soon be ready
for harvesting.

Gill is using a strain of Guyanese rice he calls “rustic” rice. “It takes about 110 days from planting to reaping,” Babulal reported.

“I am very satisfied with our production, and surprised by how good it turned out.”

Gill has been into farming for the last ten years. He grows a range of vegetables, including beans, cabbage, okras, tomatoes and cucumbers.

Water pump

“We wet everything with the water from the stream,” he said, pointing to a small mechanical pump.

To improve the holding capacity of the section of the stream which he controls, Gill used a backhoe to excavate the bed. “We went down about 18 feet,” he said.

The stream flows from somewhere in the region of Chimborazo and continues down to the area of St Ann’s Church.

Gill thinks it can adequately supply his farm year-round.

He has just started clearing land to the north of the experimental plot to plant more rice.

“Hopefully, in the next two to four weeks we will be into planting,” he said. “We will have to level the ground. We have to flood it as well.”

Gill is unsure of what the scale of production is likely to be, but says he will be looking to Hill’s rice milling operation to deal with the grain.

“They have been importing rice to package,” he said. “For the first time, they will be getting local rice.”