-market-led approach being cultivated
As the government seeks to build a “new agriculture”, several projects underway will modernize local farming with the results expected to be seen in three to five years.
Robert Persaud
In the meantime, with the Grow More Food campaign well underway, export of produce has risen, Minister of Agriculture, Robert Persaud says. “We have been able to achieve the indicators we have set ourselves”, the Minister said in a recent interview.
Two long-term strategic projects, the Agricultural Diversification Programme and the Rural Enterprise and Agricultural Development (READ) programme are off and running and these will change the agriculture landscape and modernize agriculture. Persaud said that the results will be seen in three to five years. The Grow More Food campaign, launched last year, is the framework within which interventions are being made, he added, noting that the Ministry is looking at all the requirements needed to be a big agricultural player and are putting these together.
The Agriculture Minister acknowledged that farmers and others have had difficulties but said that these have not been at a level where production has dropped or consumers could not access the products. He declared that in some cases, there has been overproduction and the New Guyana Marketing Corporation has to aggressively search for markets. Stabroek News requested export data from the Ministry but only partial data was supplied and thought it was promised that full data for 2007 and 2008 would be made available, up to press time, it was not received. The data would be crucial in establishing whether the grow more food campaign has resulted in a sustained increase in agricultural output and whether export earnings have increased.
For the first three months of this year, export data showed just over 2.4 million kilos of produce was exported. The highest figure was for January when just over 1.5 million kilograms of produce was exported and this dropped to 394 553 kilos in March. Last year, according to the 2009 Budget, the ‘other crops’ sub-sector grew by 7.7 percent.
Persaud said that people are looking to get into farming. “There is heavy competition for land for farming. I have not seen this type of interest in many, many years in terms of persons looking for land”, he disclosed. “Every day there is no less than a dozen persons would contact my office looking for land for agriculture or looking to regularize or looking for additional land”, he said. The Minister commented that in agriculture there are peaks and troughs, but people recognize that in the long term, it is a sustainable enterprise. In this light, he said that with population growth, the scarcity of arable lands and freshwater supply and climate change, food supply and availability will always be an issue. “Countries like us once we are able to do what we are doing right and position ourselves, we stand in the long term to benefit and people see that”.
In seeking land, a lot of interest has been shown in the Linden-Soesdyke highway area. The minister posited that people recognize the advantages there, namely that it is close and the weather challenges are less challenging. He said that in the future, a proper agri-export facility will be set up at Timehri.
Interest has also been shown in the intermediate savannahs for cattle; large scale rice cultivation in the Rupununi; crops for bio-fuel and small farms in the Canje basin. Different areas have their own “pull”, he stated. In traditional farming areas such as the West Demerara and Black Bush polder, the area under cultivation has been widening. A lot of exports have been taking place from Berbice to Suriname, the Minister disclosed.
Meantime, Persaud noted that agriculture is sensitive and prices can be volatile. “We remain very vulnerable to what takes place in the global marketplace and we want people to understand that because that is unpredictable but at the same time, locally we have been putting in place cushions, we have been trying to work with the different sectors to allow our farmers, to allow our producers to ride some of those unpredictable waves in terms of price movement, in terms of other difficulties which we may have.”
He observed that Guyana exports 80% of its major agricultural commodities and wants to export much more because internal consumption is limited.
Earlier, crops such as pepper and plantain had been identified as “early winners” and Persaud said that the list is not restricted. He stated that there are other crops being pursued and the Ministry is using a cluster approach and there is the aquaculture cluster, the fruits cluster, the vegetable cluster and “we are looking at those that can be developed and Guyana can be known as a lead producer or exporter of these particular crops”. The programme is flexible, he said, and is market-led.
According to the Minister, a lot of progress has been made on peppers and there is potential in a range of other crops. “We want to make the agri-diversification project so robust that it does not ride on one or two crops alone or one or two activities but will be able to allow our farmers to make adjustments to take care of the demand in the market”, he said. A lot will be happening in terms of processing, he added.
He said that the major obstacle to Agriculture is climate change due to the coast’s vulnerability to weather related issues and thus there is a need to invest in adaptation infrastructure. In terms of value-added processing, he stated that the cost of energy is an impediment. He noted that rehabilitation of infrastructure has been ongoing
Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy pulls the efforts together, he said, and Guyana can show that the country can develop a modern and a vibrant agriculture sector, open new frontiers for agriculture and at the same time, do it in a very sustainable way.
the Grow More campaign could have been a good initiative, but it was reduced to a political campaign and used as an opportunity to sing praises to the govt. I wiil not be relying on no stats provided by the Minister. We know that will be cooked up by GINA to suit their purpose. What I can say for sure is that the results of the program is not visible or might be non existent. it was a failure. How did he expect to increase export by walking around sharing out seeds to households? a kitchen garden might help the individual cause, but will certainly not increase export.
The Minister clearly lacks the technical and managerial knowledge to pull of the project. this is the downside of employing party stalwarts in critical positions instead of suitablily qualified persons. the project lacked emphasis on key areas such as quality control and pest control. you cannot expect kitchen garden produce to be of export quality. SN next time ask him about the bull nose pepper project, and how much was spent on it. that too was a failure. the project was killed by diseases and pests. a simple dry run and proper research would have detected this before all that money was expended. the Minister can go right nexr door to Suriname and see what large scale farming is like.
The minister is too preoccupied with his political ambitions and with sounding good in the media. Failing to realize that the ones listening to him are the same ones facing hardship on the ground.
The SN photo of Mr Persaud grinning is most inappropriate to this sad, sad story.
Why did SN have to REQUEST EXPORT DATA?????
If indeed the minister is right when he claims export of produce has risen, then why did he not turn up to the interview with the hard facts.
SN is on the right track when they decided recently to publish weekly economic indicators and Mr Persaud can learn a lot from this.
The minister is most strange when he says there is competition for land for farming!
Guyana with its 1 million people is the same size a s the UK with its 80 million people. LAND SHOULD BE FORCED-FED TO GUYANESE FARMERS.
If the farmers do not use it, then the government reclaims it!!!!!!!!
No mention of soya crops and complaints of population growth and scarcity of arable lands leaves me speechless.
That is why Barbados throwing them back in Guyana,,, They can make decent living in Guyana by farming but foreign mindedness take them to all parts of the world to do the same job and even worst…
what are you doing in america solideer why are you still in america, get your sorry ungrateful tail back to Guyana now.
You are hollering about these people in Barbados why dont you go and live under jagdeo now? stop all the hideous talk man go back and hug jagdeo.
It is funny how Karan Singh, JAgdeo’s lacky run back to canada as soon as he got canned from GWI. Nobady ain’t want to live under jagdeo and the PPP that is clear as day.
We want the measurement in production to be in metric tons not kilos. I remember during the PNC days production was measured in kilos to make the numbers look large and the PPP was very critical. Now they are doing the same thing. Its is time for the PPP and PNC to go.
Easy to convert 1 000 kg = 1 ton.
2.4 million kg = 2,400 tons.
You know something. You always read about something going on in the agri drive.But you never hear about the results.
sa-moron, you sounding like a broken record. give it up. you already done campaigning in toronto for the all fee cee?
The broken record has all you ppp soup lickas in turmoil, you can’t sleep at night hahahahhahah and I am enjoying every bit of it.
I will continue to haunt you fellas until you start waking up and being truthful to indians in Guyana that the PPP is a waste of time.
Ravi Dev started it and I will continue to run with that torch,.
Energy is costly, then, the government should have policies and programs, to move the country rapidly away from the use of traditional fossil fuels, to alternative energy/electricity; solar, wind, hydro etc., as been done in Europe, Japan and other parts of the world.
And, incentivise citizens, particularly, the young, poor and vulnerable with education, skills training, finance, loans, land and the neccessary infrastructure, to establish micro and medium businesses, and to settle and farm in the fertile and untapped interior of the country, away from the flood prone coastal areas – which is increasingly costly to maintain and rehabilitate, after ech flooding.
Give the land to the landless, to be productive and help eradicate their state of economic insecurity and fear.