Region Ten pushes for greater food security

The pursuit by farmers in Region Ten of greater self-sufficiency in agricultural produce in the wake of the floods in 2005 and 2006 has begun to pay important dividends as the country braces itself to face steadily rising food prices.

Linden Economic Advancement Pro-gramme (LEAP) agriculture and economics expert Oswald Kwamina has told Stabroek Business that the region has already realized around 70 per cent self-sufficiency in some fresh fruit, vegetables and poultry and that increased agricultural production has already begun to pay dividends in terms of prices that now compare favourably with prices in Georgetown.

Region Ten’s focus on growing more of the food that it consumes assumes a particular significance in the context of government’s call for a countrywide increase in food production and Kwamina told Stabroek Business that the region was now a major producer of pak choi, tomatoes, bora, cucumber, water melons and lettuce and that the region had also recorded a significant increase in poultry production……