ONE advice I would like to give the Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Robert M. Persaud is that he should pay keen attention to sub-letting, and the statistics, of government state lands, be it forestry, mining or rice lands. Equity means that all men and women have opportunities to improve or maintain their well-being. And accountability has to do with decision-making in government, private sector and civil society organisations as all are accountable to the public, as well as to institutional stakeholders.

This accountability differs depending on the organisation and whether the decision is internal or external to an organization.
The Hon Minister has been doing a fantastic job since he assumed office, and one has to appreciate that he is the fourth Minister of Agriculture (under the PPP/C administration since it took office in 1992) and he is not responsible for some of the shortcomings in his ministry.
“He was given a basket to fetch water.” However, one of the areas that he should pay keen attention to is proper land use. The rice sector has grown tremendously while other sectors such as sugar and bauxite has not been at the level it was years ago. The minister must therefore be concerned about the subletting of government state lands especially the hundreds of acres of rice lands in Region Two by large rice millers.

The minister should be concerned about those persons and rice millers who received rice lands from the State and are not utilizing those lands productively. Many of them have lease lands acquired for next to nothing. And therefore, since they have received lease at a premium price they have a moral obligation to ensure that they cultivate it. Most young men in Region Two, for instance, who are farmers have inherited their parents rice lands while the big land owners are subletting State lands. This is a disorganized situation and legislation should be prepared to speed up the reallocation of these lands to make beneficial use of them.
We must act urgently to remove the many problems which have, in the past, hampered agricultural production. One of the most important of these is the problem of land tenure. We have not yet acted on the issue of landlordism.