By Nicosia Smith
Guyana has seen several high-profile farming ventures over the years, but some haven’t stood the test of time, and the challenges faced in the past are still present, as start-up farmers and established ones battle to stay in business.
One company had changed the face of agriculture in the intermediate savannahs for a while by successfully growing several non-traditional crops, despite being told it could not be done.
GC Mekdeci & Company Ltd, owned by Gerard Mekdeci, had confounded the sceptics by proving that broccoli, cauliflower, butternut squash, cantaloupes, honeydew melons, sweet-corn, zucchini and even strawberries could not only grow commercially in Guyana but in the tricky environment of the savannahs. Mekdeci did it on his Kaikotin Farm.
In late 2000, he began preparing the land for what was to be Kaikotin Farm and the necessary infrastructure was put in place to commence trial plots of broccoli, lettuce and cauliflower in 2001.
The total capital expenditure as of April 2004 at Kaikotin was US$200,000 ($40 million) with profits per acre ranging from 15% to 30%.
But after four years, Mekdeci had to call it quits, as fuel and transportation cost to the savannahs proved to be too much for this pioneering farmer.
He had told Stabroek Business in an April 30, 2004 article that to expand from his 14 hectares he needed a “high clearance sprayer” which cost at the time US$30,000. This is a tractor so tall that it drives over the heads of the corn plants to spray insecticide on the plants. Taking a loan from the bank, he had said, was not an option since “the lending rate is very painful.” He never got to expand his farm.
