By Rowland Fletcher – Agronomist
The Savannah Dream:
When American businessman Stan Greene of Global Agri notoriety arrived in Guyana sometime in 1969, with a grandiose plan in his briefcase to convert the Kibilibiri Savannahs into a major grain (corn and soyabean) producing farmstead which would have been renamed Jordanville, the government of the day viewed its implementation as the realization of their agricultural diversification dream, and seized the opportunity.
Greene delivered on his commitment on procurement of agricultural machinery and field equipment for the project. He then calmly collected his commissions and mysteriously disappeared, without fulfilling the second half of the deal, which was to provide expertise and skills to initiate the 2000 acre production project and train local field staff in large-scale commercial husbandry techniques.
Local agricultural planners and technicians had no option but to take command, under the control of the Ministry of Agriculture. The outcome was the Global Agri Kibilibiri grain project, which embarked on large- scale production of maize, sorghum, soyabean and black-eye pea. Approximately 1400 acres was put under cultivation during which time ownership and management of the project was derogated to the state owned Guyana Agricultural Products Corporation, which continued farming until 1978. Later on, the Guyana Rice Board established a field research and development unit to evaluate up-land rice varieties and tropical wheat. Findings were inconclusive and did not warrant expansion to commercial production status. Some time after, the Demerara Tobacco Company leased the property for tobacco production, quite successfully, until the fall in world market prices of the commodity made local production uneconomical.
Savannah agriculture expansion (1976-1996)
The initial production efforts at Kibilibiri were impressive enough to convince sister Caricom States of Trinidad and St. Kitts to join Guyana around 1976, in the initiation of a separate project – The Caricom Corn and Soyabean Project, which had financial backing from regional and international funding sources. The 800ha (2000 acre) project was set in the undulating landscape of the neighboring Eberoabo Savannahs. A similar crop mix as for Kibilibiri was adopted, with pigeon pea included. While Caricom Corn Soya was attempting to gain momentum, the Guyana National Service embarked on a cotton and blackeye pea production in the western savannahs at Kimbia. Hence, within a time-span of five years, three large savannah projects were initiated, where none existed before. All were under state control, and with significant bureaucratic management; certainly not a desirable combination for commercial success. All this was occurring against the backdrop of a gradual decline through the early 1990s of commercial activity on the Livestock Development Project Ebini Ranch, which had commanded such high prospects as a potential beef export center following Guyana’s international clearance on foot and mouth disease. The dream was slowly becoming a nightmare as slippages intensified and production targets fell short on all these ambitious projects. The savannah agricultural vision was attracting increasingly skeptical criticism from its detractors and critics.
Private sector dispensation:
Eventually large-scale commercial state controlled agriculture in the savannahs slowly ground to a halt by the early 1990s. Interest in the savannahs would only be resuscitated through an initiative by Government with OAS assistance to launch the INSAP project, which had a mission: “to facilitate orderly and sustainable development of the Intermediate Savannah ecozone and adjacent riverain communities through promotion of agro-industrial investment, eco-tourism and community enhancement.” The emphasis here was on “facilitation.” Private sector investors, developers and small farmers would do the investment and farming.
Government via INSAP oversaw the orderly allocation of long- term savannah agricultural leases to both developers and small farmers, and considered agricultural investment incentives to stimulate developmental activity. The INSAP initiative essentially shifted focus from large state operated farms. Government would fulfill the facilitating role of regulated land allocation, discouraging speculative occupancy, providing enabling infrastructure, ensuring sustainable ecological management and environmental integrity, and market facilitation where appropriate.
Advantages to commercial
savannah farming:
The reader is sure to ask –“why this perennial persistence to harness the agricultural potential of such infertile sandy soils?” Foremost is the enthralling attraction of the open savannahs, suggesting opportunities for large-scale cattle ranching, sheep and goat production, fruit orchards and mechanized grain production to satisfy the livestock feed industry. In other words –Agricultural Diversification in a big way. Then, there is the assurance that we’re not just dreaming, since similar large scale commercial farming activities are successfully being practiced in our neighboring countries of Brazil and Colombia and Venezuela, on similar soil types and on a much more expansive scale than we in Guyana could ever conceive. These countries have been able to stimulate this level of agricultural development through a combination of entrepreneurial initiative and State support programmes on infrastructure, satellite-framing arrangements, farming incentives and input subsidies. Admittedly the economies of those countries are much more robust, but our failures have had more to do with lack of persistence and intensity of purpose. As testimony of this thesis, our most progressive and successful savannah developer today, has been in the savannahs for the past 15 plus years. The technical and agronomic justification for our persistence in savannah agricultural development is overwhelming:
The vast expanses of open savannah are amenable to large-scale commercial agriculture outside of sugar and rice.
Significantly lower costs for land clearing and infrastructure works (drainage roads). Land development costs are relatively minimal since environmental codes dictate that only open savannah be cultivated, while forested areas and watercourses remain in their pristine state.
The soils, albeit low in fertility, possess a huge compensatory advantage in their superior physical structure, which allows free drainage, and facilitates excellent root growth of numerous crops, which would not perform as well on our heavy poorly drained coastal clay soils.
The farming environment will accommodate the type of integrated agriculture production systems recommended for economically viable agribusiness ventures.
Mixed farming is highly recommended for the savannahs. Farmers can select from a range of production options including livestock (cattle, and small ruminants) grain crops (maize, sorghum, peanut, red pea, soyabean, pigeon pea), fruit crops (citrus, pineapple, passion fruit, sorrel, West Indian cherry) vegetables and cash crops.
Savannah agricultural
development challenges:
In embracing the abovementioned opportunities, investors will have to be prepared to deal with specific challenges related to harnessing the inherent productivity of the savannahs.
Foremost is the need for soil amelioration and fertilization to successfully farm these lands. This is a sine qua non conditionality, and will be addressed in depth when we consider an integrated soil management programme for the ecozone.
The combination of crops livestock and farm management techniques that will comprise the farm enterprise mix can only be derived by the developer through a process of agri-business rationalization and analysis involving cost effectiveness of farm operations, markets, agro-processing etc. This will require heavy inputs in time, managerial expertise and monitoring of field production processes and marketing arrangements. Is the farmer investor amenable to this demand, and will he/ she be prepared to spend considerable time on the farm streamlining systems and managing these processes?
Access to and application of appropriate agricultural technology is vital. Considerable research and technical investigations have been conducted in this ecozone in Guyana as well as in neighboring countries especially Brazil and Colombia, and a wealth of technical information and production guidelines are available if one only knows where to find them. Our considerable agricultural research data- base in the Intermediate Savannahs has not been adequately documented and archived. As time marches on our institutional memory on savannah agricultural capability will continue to slip away. It is this information vacuum that has caused costly and unnecessary mistakes in previous agricultural investment projects.
Other physical challenges relating to agricultural development such as access to the target area and transportation will be considered as substantive discussion topics. I will show that these physical challenges may well be major overshadowing factors, even negating the efforts at addressing the technical constraints to production.
