WHILE the focus for many may be the hype and celebration, former Minister of Agriculture Dr. Simpson Da Silva who hails from Corentyn Berbice is using the Linden Town Week celebration to educate Lindeners on the benefits of greening the town and how they can achieve the goal of a green agenda.
Simpson along with a colleague has decorated the Linden/Georgetown bus park with scores of plants, mostly medicinal, in an effort to bring to the attention of Lindeners the importance and benefits and growing their own food. The Moringa plant which Simpson described as a very nutritional plant is one of the project’s major highlights since it can be grown right in Linden, processed and consumed for several purposes. In addition, to leaning towards herbal treatment, Simpson is also highlighting the goal of eradicating food shortage through agriculture. “A primary goal that we focus on is zero hunger or eradicating hunger from the communities, eradicating poverty, health for all and education for all,” he said.
Asked whether the residents of Linden have been responding positively to the plant exhibition and the information available, Simpson responded in the affirmative and expressed hope that with more support and education, Linden can become a green town. “I find that the people are embracing the goal readily and as it is explained to them, they are willing to go back to their communities and ‘green up’ their households that’s the first thing I tell them, you cannot have a green state without having a green household, we have to have green men and women and green boys and girls,” the doctor asserted.
Dr Da Silva also met with the Regional Executive Officer, Gavin Clarke and the Regional Chairman Renis Morian. He also believes that since Linden is not seen as an agricultural town but a mining town, one way to break this mind set is to incorporate the green agenda through agriculture into the schools. Teachers, he said should go back to the days of ‘show and tell’ so as to grasp the children’s attention from an early age. Once the agenda is infiltrated into our children’s minds at an early age, it will create a ripple effect in the holistic development of Guyana, Da Silva said.
On Friday, the team showcased 47 different herbs that are grown in Linden and demonstrated how the juices can be extracted and the plethora of uses for same. This he said can create employment in the mining town of Linden. Simpson who is a veteran agriculturist is urging the Ministry of Agriculture to embrace the green culture and enact systems to have the agriculture, food, nutrition and health policy to be rooted at the household level in addition to the medium and large scale enterprises.