While the National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (NAREI) should continue to perform its service-related functions to the country’s agricultural sector including its role in providing valuable technical support to privately-run projects, there exists a case for attaching fees to services provided by the Institute, Chief Executive Officer of the National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (NAREI) Dr. Oudho Homenauth has told the Stabroek Business.
Responding to a question raised by the Stabroek Business regarding the need for the state-funded research and extension entity to enhance its self-supporting capacity, Dr. Homenauth declared that while the services offered by NAREI are important to the viability of the large numbers of local small farmers with limited resources, there exists a case for attaching fees to some of the services provided by the agency that enhance both the efficiency and the profitability of large agricultural operations. Homenauth said that such charges should be “separate and distinct” from contracts which NAREI undertakes for private agricultural investments.
Currently in its thirty-fourth year of existence NAREI was established by an Act of Parliament arising out of the outcomes of a 1982 study designed “to identify alternatives for the management of agricultural research in Guyana” and undertaken by the Netherlands-based International Service for National Agricultural Research (ISNAR).
