Two successive years of flooding in Guyana’s coastal areas – in 2005 and 2006 – and the attendant consequences of scarcity of fresh fruit and vegetables and accompanying price rises compelled Region Ten to seriously contemplate its vulnerability to agricultural ‘imports’ and the weakness of its food security infrastructure.

The response of the region was to commission a study of its agricultural potential aimed at determining the extent to which it could provide for its own food needs.

All this, of course, took place long before the current global food crisis had emerged. At that time, Region Ten was concerned about the vulnerability to flooding in the country’s agricultural areas and the likelihood that its residents might suffer even more in the event that there was any repetition of the floods of those two years……