GUYANA’S agricultural subsectors of sugar and non- traditional crops such as fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices will receive support for cleaner production systems through access to large-scale, commercially produced bio–inputs, with technical assistance from the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA).These subsectors are to benefit in this manner from an IICA project titled: ”Development of the institutional framework of the sub-sector of commercial bio-inputs of agricultural Use,” to promote a less polluted agriculture in Guyana, Paraguay and The Dominican Republic .
Bio-inputs have been defined as biological inoculants and bio-pesticides which ensure safe food production, nutrition security and the environmental sustainability of farming activities in agricultural communities
Animal manure, plant-based products (green manure, green-leaf manure), compost and crop residues (sugar-cane trash, cotton, etc) are some traditional bio-inputs, which are sources of nutrients.

The project is being funded and implemented by the IICA under its Competitive Fund for Technical Cooperation. Guyana is the only Caribbean country to benefit from this project.
The information was disclosed during the launch of the project in the boardroom of the Ministry of Agriculture on Thursday last. Those present at the launch included Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, George Jervis; senior staffers of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); GUYSUCO; the University of Guyana; the Pesticides and Toxic Chemicals Control Board (PTCCB) among others; members of the business community; senior staffers of the IICA and their overseas-based Technical Support Staff.
The overseas-based resource persons at the launch were IICA staffers Mr Pedro Cussianovich, who is Coordinator of the Project and Dr Pedro J Rocha, International Specialist and a Consultant, Mr Andres Van Strahlen.

During the launch, IICA’s Local Representative Mr Wilmot Garnett, stated that the search for sustainable systems of agricultural production which are resilient, efficient and able to mitigate adverse environmental impacts of climate change,required the use of technological packages of biological and chemical origins.
These inputs must however be used to specifications to ensure agricultural, human, animal and environmental health. He said that the use of standards and protocols for evaluation, registration and post-registration of these bio-input products, coupled with appropriate institutional structures, were essential to support agricultural inputs suppliers who want to market them in Guyana.
He said that the project aimed to engage the private and public sectors to strengthen and/or develop where necessary, the institutional capacity required to conduct evaluation processes, registration, and post-registration control of commercial bio-inputs for agricultural use.
Mr Pedro Cussianovich said that every day more countries in the Region were looking for sustainable production models that minimize the impact on the environment produced by chemical inputs.
He said that the project would help Guyana Paraguay and The Dominican Republic to establish the institutional framework to regulate and control large-scale and commercial bio-inputs for agriculture, as cleaner alternatives.
Using a participatory approach, IICA will consult with and train Guyanese officials in evaluation, registration and post-registration control of commercial bio-inputs and handling and enforcement of standards and technical operating procedures.
The target groups include public and private actors involved in the commercial development of bio-inputs such as universities, laboratories, farmers organizations, importers developers (national and transnational) Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and producers who will find a new and alternative commercial avenue of suitable systems for more sustainable, efficient and cleaner agricultural production.
During a presentation on “Bio-inputs : Concepts and applications in agriculture,” Dr Pedro Rocha said that bio-inputs tend to reduce the use of toxic agro-chemicals and issues related to disposal of chemical residues.
He stressed that the increasing demands of mankind for organically produced food provide an important market for bio-inputs and this was the agricultural wave of the future.
PS Jervis said that Guyana had been using bio-inputs in a limited way since the early 1990s, more notably to treat copra and in legume production.
He said that the IICA programme was timely, since a transition to green agriculture could restore and maintain soil productivity, reduce soil erosion and chemical erosion,increase water-use efficiency, decrease deforestation, bio- diversity loss and other land-use consequences.
He stressed: “A greening agriculture will ensure food security on a sustainable basis and significantly reduce the environmental and economic costs associated with the use of industrial agro-chemicals.`
The programme will be implemented by the local office of IICA in collaboration with the National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (NAREI) and the PTCCB.
Cussianovich said that in Guyana it was being implemented with a timeline which anticipates that the institutional framework and standards necessary for the adoption and large-scale use of bio-inputs locally will be completed by July next year, with the final act of training of all stakeholders to effectively manage the system shortly thereafter. (END).