GUYANA’s economy remains largely agriculture-driven and will

remain so for a very long time, given its history and its geography and therefore the agriculture sector needs to be developed to its optimum. And in fact because of our sound policies and programmes, agricultural production has been booming, notwithstanding the dismal performance of the sugar industry in recent years. The agriculture sector has grown to such a point where we are now self-sufficient in food and are a net food exporter.
We are blessed with an abundance of arable land and fresh water, which are essential to agricultural production, and therefore the capacity to continuously increase and diversify agricultural output is almost limitless.
However, because of the market forces of supply/demand, there are periods of glut and scarcity of food supplies, but this could be rectified through the development of an agro-processing industry as agricultural produce are perishables and therefore cannot be stored for long periods during periods of glut. Consequently, large amounts of fruit and vegetables are wasted during periods of glut which result in great losses to farmers as well as to our economy.
Unfortunately, our agro-processing industry remains largely underdeveloped because of a lack of investments in this respect. And this is understandable because a cheap and reliable source of electricity is an imperative for the development and sustainability of agro-processing facilities.
In fact, today the agro=processing industry is among the largest global industries and if we could latch on to that global market it would wonders for our agriculture sector and the extension of our economy.
Euromonitor International reckons the packaged food industry–including everything from pasta and cooking oil to canned and frozen foods–is worth almost $1.6 trillion. Meanwhile, the World Bank puts the food and agriculture sector at 10% of global gross domestic product, which, taking the bank’s 2006 estimate of about $48 trillion, would make the sector worth about $4.8 trillion.
The stumbling block, therefore, to the development of an agro-processing industry in our country has been the absence of a cheap and reliable supply of electricity. And the answer to this lies in the development of hydro power for which we have an enormous potential as we have over 300 waterfalls scattered around our country.
In this respect, the stalling of the Amaila hydro project by the political opposition is agonising and puts a brake on the development of an agro-processing industry which is vital to the expansion, growth and diversification of the agriculture sector, apart from the numerous other benefits it could have brought to our country.
And therefore President Donald Ramotar was quite in order when he recently lamented  the stalling of the Amaila project.
He noted: “We can flood Barbados with milk from the Mahaicony alone, we can have peanuts in the Rupununi, in the North West District, in many parts of our country; sugar, even though struggling, we have enough to put in peanut punch. So why is it that we make peanut punch in Barbados for Guyana’s market? It is simply because energy here is too expensive.”
So cost it what it may, we have to develop hydro power if we are going to fully develop our agricultural and industrial capacity in our drive to improve our economy and create a better life for all of our peoples.
It seems that the Opposition does not have such an aspiration and would like our people to remain in economic stagnation and degradation as when they were in power for those dreadful 28 years.
Those who voted for them should take a hard look at whether they made the right choice and do not repeat such a mistake, because the future of this country may lie with their choice at the next election.