…urges farmers to embrace new technology, says Ramotar will be good for sector
PRESIDENT Bharrat Jagdeo said the Government will continue to support agriculture and he urged farmers to embrace the new technology and industries connected to the sector in the future, as he threw his support behind PPP/C Presidential Candidate Donald Ramotar, saying that he too is a supporter of the sector.
He spoke while at the MMA/ADA Open Day and Mini Exhibition at the Bath Tarmac, West Coast Berbice yesterday.
“The People’s Progressive Party has never been a fair weather friend of the farmers. We have been there in the good times and we have been there in the bad times,” the President said.

These women receive the title to their leases of land in the MMA/ADA scheme from President Jagdeo and Presidential Candidate Donald Ramotar

“We in the Government will continue to support agriculture. If you look at agriculture in the region, you would see that it is declining. While they have incentives for tourism and so many other sectors, there are few for agriculture,” the President said.
“In this country, we have a whole range of incentives for the agriculture sector,” he said, adding that the country’s yearly budget supports agriculture in a significant way.
“I am convinced that Donald Ramotar will bear the torch for the PPP in the next five years; and because of his struggle for freedom in this land, freedom that we celebrate today, the anniversary of which we celebrate today, I am convinced that farmers and the agriculture sector in this country will grow stronger,” the President said.
“You have heard a lot about the past and how long it took to get where we are. But we would be the first to admit that there is still a difficult road ahead and there is much, much more that needs to be done in this country, to allow all of our people to live the kind of lives we wish for everyone. So the work is not completed,” he said.
He said that the government never rests on its laurels. “We are proud of them and you should be proud of them, because you have made them possible.” He said that the tremendous changes in the country in terms of freedoms can never be given a price. “How can you put a price on your children growing up in an environment where they can blossom into[what] they want to be? There is no price to that,” he said.
“Together we won it back for our country. We won it first of all through struggle and sacrifice from the British when they treated all the people of this country like second class citizens, and then we won it back when the freedom was snatched away from us through the theft of the ballot boxes and the theft[of] our dignity, and that is the freedom that we must protect. And each one of you has a role to play in protecting that freedom, because it is priceless,” he said.
He said that by year end, 57,000 computers will be distributed to poor families under the One Laptop Per Family initiative. “That will allow us to do a whole range of things – better kinds of jobs, women being trained so that they too can become part of this workforce, and stay right at home and earn a salary. That is the world of online possibility in a knowledge-based economy,” he said.
Speaking of agriculture’s place in the future economy of the country, he said that in a few years, the world’s population would have grown to nine billion people and those people will need food. “All the signs are pointing towards shortage of food based on global demand for a bigger population, and our country could be right there to meet that demand. So agriculture will be an important part of the future, but not the kind of agriculture that we do today. We have to change the way we engage in agriculture so that there are large-scale plantations in the savannahs and the Rupununi,” he said.
He said that from large-scale agriculture, a logistics framework could be built around transport infrastructure, processing infrastructure, shipping and airport infrastructure, agri-business infrastructure, chemicals and others.
He said that agriculture encompasses a whole range of sectors and almost every religious and ethnic group in this country. “Sometimes we get criticised for agriculture because people think it is political, but our support ranges across the sector,” he said.
The president urged the farmers to embrace the new approaches to agriculture and to adapt to them and not shy away from them. “Move in that direction because that is the only sustainable direction, and it will allow your incomes to grow,” he said.
At the end of the speeches, a number of farmers received titles for their leases of tracts of land in the MMA/ADA agriculture scheme.