– to preserve industry’s glories
AS part of the efforts to recapture and preserve the history revolving around the transformation of the sugar industry in Guyana, the Ministry of Agriculture will be collaborating with other agencies to establish a sugar Museum. Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy spoke of this development during a discussion programme on the National Communications Network on Budget 2012 implementation, over the weekend.
He said the history of the sugar industry runs through the veins of every single Guyanese, since it helped to establish what Guyana is today. “Sugar has always been one of the pillars in our development…it’s not only part of our development, it’s part of us, what we are as a country today,” Minister Ramsammy said. The Ministry of Agriculture will be seeking out expertise from the Ministry of Culture and the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) to help establish the museum that will stand to remind the present and future generations of the contribution of sugar to the country’s development.
Sugar cultivation was first introduced into Guyana in the 1630s, and the scale of its planting expanded rapidly from the second half of the seventeenth century onward. The local industry played the most significant role in the economy and even today, it remains the largest single employer in the country with an estimated 20,000 workforce.