The proposed road link between Guyana and Brazil and the deep-water harbour here are among several key initiatives that their agricultural ministers discussed at a virtual engagement yesterday.
A Ministry of Agriculture release yesterday reported that Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha, along with Brazil’s Minister of Agriculture, Tereza Cristina; Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture’s (IICA) Director General, Dr Manuel Otero; and other officials from IICA, Guyana, and Brazil participated earlier in the day in discussions concerning “collaborative efforts” to improve Guyana’s agriculture sector.
Mustapha referred to the engagement as both “timely and important” and pointed out that recent amendments to the Partial Scope Agreement “augur well” for Guyana’s plans to increase rice production and tap into new markets by 2025.
The Partial Scope Agreement was signed between Guyana and Brazil on 27 June 2001.
Mustapha acknowledged that over the years, the two countries have enjoyed an excellent relationship in trade and agriculture development, and recent amendments to the Partial Scope Agreement have enabled both countries to benefit from more trade links
“We are looking to expand these ties while also looking to develop new areas of technical cooperation. Guyana is pleased with the recent advances made in the Partial Scope Agreement, which has increased our supply quota from 10,000 tonnes to 34,000 tonnes of rice to Brazil. This augurs well for us in terms of increasing our production and tapping into new markets for our produce,” Mustapha said.
The minister also assured that government is moving vigorously to establish road linkages between Guyana’s capital, Georgetown, and Lethem. “A lot of effort is also being put into establishing the road linkage from Georgetown to Lethem. With government’s intention to develop a deep-water harbour, persons traveling from Northern Brazil will be able to use that deep-water harbour to effectively export their produce. Rather than having to use the Pacific Coast, they can use the Atlantic Coast and export their produce in two days”, he said.
Brazil’s Minister of Agriculture, Cristina echoed that the deep-water harbour was important and would assist both countries, more so Brazil, with exports and trade in the region.
“In terms of investment, we believe that the deep-water harbour is very important and would assist greatly with getting both Guyanese and Brazilian products into the region. I am also aware that there are issues with the highway connecting our northern states. For our exports to take place in substantial volumes, it would be good for those conditions to be improved. I think that this is something that we could discuss with our Minister of Infrastructure in Brazil and with our Ambassador, and have a meeting to discuss these constraints. We have several businesses from the agricultural and soya bean sector in Brazil that would like to invest in Roraima and it would be crucial to have this corridor to send that production through your harbour,” Cristina was quoted as saying.
The Brazilian minister also drew attention to the importance of developing a sound strategy to exterminate the Carambola Fruit Fly
“These efforts started in 2011 in Guyana, Brazil, and Suriname. We need to work with integrated actions to establish some form of surveillance so that we can eradicate these insects. It is very important for us to revisit those conversations and work with our technical teams to establish some level of priorities,” Cristina said.
Mustapha responded that Guyana is also committed to developing a long-term strategy to control and eradicate the Carambola Fruit Fly. The agriculture ministry has been in collaboration with the National Agriculture Research and Extension Institute (NAREI), IICA, and other Brazilian experts, to host workshops geared at sensitising farmers about the pest. He assured that government will continue to work to rid the country of the Carambola Fruit Fly, as it serves as a hindrance to the export of fruits and some vegetables.
