AGRICULTURE Minister Robert Persaud said, yesterday, that the 5,000 acres to be brought under cultivation, through the Land Development Programme in Region Two (Pomeroon/Supenaam), is a move that is in sync with global realities.
The project, in Aurora on the Essequibo Coast, is expected to be executed this year at a cost of $150M, as part of a wider initiative to cultivate more lands. Mr. Persaud said the thrust to open new lands, is a response to the realities of climate change and better position Guyana for the opportunities of tomorrow.
Food prices around the world surged to a new historic peak in January, for the seventh consecutive month, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) reported, stating that they are not likely to decline in the months ahead.
Persaud said the increases will translate into greater demand, which would present a good opportunity for a country like Guyana that is mainly agriculture based.
He said the 2011 Budget allocations are aimed at advancing various initiatives to prepare for tomorrow and, according to him, with the expansion of agricultural lands and the quest to put new lands under cultivation, provision has been made for a greater number
of pumps and the construction and rehabilitation of key drainage and irrigation (D&I) structures and access roads improvement.
The total 2011 allocation for the agriculture sector is $9.1 billion and Persaud said:
“We stand to benefit. We need to plan and be ready.”
The latest FAO Food Price Index average was up 3.4 percent in January, from December last year, the highest since the agency started measuring in 1990.
It added that prices of all monitored commodity groups surged in January, except the cost of meat, which remained unchanged.
Guyana is estimated to have as much as 220,000 acres for rice cultivation alone, plus in excess of 500,000 acres for other crops.
This is not including the thousands of acres available for sugar cultivation and the additional millions more in the hinterland regions, which can be planted to heighten production in different areas.