Floods put 54% of Paraguay's rice area at risk

(By Última Hora, Paraguay) Overflowing rivers and excessive rain left more than half of the 175,000 hectares planted with rice this year in Paraguay submerged. The sector warns that the damage has been proven and that thousands of jobs are also at risk. Among the crops planted, some are in vegetative development and others in the reproductive phase, with 15% to 20% of the planting intention for this campaign still to be sown. The vice-president of the Paraguayan Federation of Rice Producers (Feparroz), Reinero Franco, estimates that around 80 thousand hectares, which are already cultivated, are directly at risk. “Today, around 54% of Paraguay’s rice growing area is at risk. The damage is already imminent. “Defining how much production loss is is very difficult to know now because it depends a little on how the weather will behave in the coming days,” he said. The greatest impact is observed on the banks of the Tebicuary River. On one side are the rice farming areas of San Juan, ...