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Hours af­ter ma­jor­i­ty state-owned Na­tion­al Flour Mills (NFM) in­formed rice farm­ers of a pro­posed $0.50 price cut per kilo­gramme of Grade 1 rice pad­dy, Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture and Fish­eries Ravi Rati­ram in­ter­vened and re­versed the de­ci­sion.

The farm­ers were told they would be paid by NFM $2.99 per kilo­gramme for Grade 1 rice pad­dy in­stead of the orig­i­nal $3.49 a kilo­gramme yes­ter­day morn­ing by NFM’s chief ex­ec­u­tive, Ian Mitchell, at a meet­ing in Ch­agua­nas.

The NFM buys the farm­ers’ rice at a guar­an­teed price. They told Guardian Me­dia that no rea­son was giv­en for the pro­posed price slash. It left them an­gry, as they ex­pressed con­cern and wor­ry about the fu­ture of the rice in­dus­try should there be a new price ad­just­ment.