— coconut a growing multimillion-dollar industry, providing jobs for hundreds

COVERING an area of about 60 square miles, Pomeroon, a once Dutch cotton plantation, is a picturesque, deep riverine farming community and the heartland of coconut cultivation in Guyana.
The Pomeroon is dotted by scattered houses surrounded by citrus and ground provision farms, avocado trees that appear to be touching the clouds, giant papaw plants that dwarf flat houses and thousands upon thousands of acres of coconut trees.

This rustic and serene stretch of fertile land is a farming paradise that was once inhabited by the Cariwanna tribes hundreds of years ago.
Today, people of African descent are in the majority, followed by Amerindians. There are also quite a few East Indians and Portuguese and together, all the ethnic groups in the Pomeroon make up a population of over 3000.
This area is usually accessed at Charity, Essequibo Coast, Region Two, via the 200 odd miles meandering Pomeroon River, the deepest river in this small South American nation.
It is an idyllic setting with beautiful and hospitable people, but it is better known for its coconuts, which residents proudly claim bear the sweetest and most refreshing water in the world.

Recognised as a leading health drink globally, coconut water is known for regulating the blood pressure, rehydrating the body, and being a good heart tonic, in addition to a host of other health benefits.
In the Pomeroon, coconut has also been of great social benefit to residents there.
Coconut cultivation continues to be a means out of poverty, a means of tackling rural unemployment and a means of providing sustainable livelihoods for the majority of Pomeroonians.
The Pomeroon basin has 10 large coconut farmers and about 250 small producers, who together cultivate some 10,000 acres of coconut, producing around 25 million nuts per year.

About 70 per cent of the nuts are harvested for water, while the remainder are dried coconuts. The majority of the nuts — both water coconuts and dried coconuts — are sold in the capital city, Georgetown, about 95 miles from the Pomeroon.
The rest are sold in the Essequibo region and exported, mainly to Trinidad and Tobago and The Dominican Republic. Annually, the Pomeroon produces more than $1 billion worth in coconuts and provides direct and indirect employment for over 1000 rural residents.
For many residents there, the industry is their chief source of income, it is the means through which they are able to provide for their families, send their children to school, build and expand their homes and upon which they depend for a secure future.
In the Pomeroon alone, the industry is worth an estimated G$2.5B and growing.
Roopan Ramotar, a prominent businessman who resides at Land of Plenty, a village on the Essequibo Coast which is about 35 miles from the Pomeroon, quit mining about three years ago, turning his attention to the coconut industry and starting operations at Caledonia, Lower Pomeroon.

NEW GOLD
He told the Guyana Chronicle that coconut is the new gold.
“Essequibo is not only wealthy in precious mineral resources, but it has an abundance of land and fresh water. When gold prices crashed about two years ago, I had a few dredges in the mines and I found the mining operation was becoming a challenge in terms of being financially viable. So I packed up and moved out, because I saw the ‘gold’ elsewhere. I told my friends and family that I stop mining for gold and will be planting ‘gold’ instead, and they look at me in bemusement.”

Ramotar invested a portion of his savings in developing a 500-acre plot at Caledonia from his years of investment in the rice, gold, and lumber industries.
He also took a bank loan, which he combined with some money of his own to roll out his new dream — a modern coconut factory in his busy home village, Land of Plenty.
The factory, a multimillion-dollar investment, provides employment for about 40 Essequibians and already, Ramotar has begun export of coconut water to Trinidad and Tobago and has set his sights on making inroads in markets in the U.S. and Europe.
On the Essequibo Coast, in the rural town of Anna Regina, Ramotar’s Roster brand of coconut water dominates the shelves of shops and supermarkets where it is a commodity in regular demand.
Also producing bottled coconut water for export to Trinidad and Tobago is Vilma De Silva, a resident of the Pomeroon who has been in the business for the past 20 years.
De Silva, the only large-scale woman producer, cultivates 37 acres of coconut in Marlborough, Pomeroon and also buys from small producers to sustain her Trinidad and Tobago market.

Like Ramotar, she declined to go into any details about the volume of her export to the sister CARICOM state, but instead chose to say that the business is “profitable” and the future of the industry is bright.
Today, she said, the industry has come a long way, pointing out in her younger days, cultivation was entirely a manual process.
“Land preparation and empoldering of land were done manually and it was hard work. Nowadays, things have changed and farmers are using excavators and to prepare their lands and weeding machines to keep their farms clean and their work is much easier,” said De Silva, who employs a workforce of 20.
But even with this positive development, De Silva, who is also a councillor in the bustling town of Anna Regina, said there are lots more to be done for the industry.

SUPPORT NEEDED
“The industry needs government’s support in terms of research and product development. There are more than 160 value-added products of coconut we can go into. We need duty-free farm equipment and soft loans to [be] able to expand operations, as well as technology for development of new coconut products,” she said.
President of the Essequibo Chamber of Commerce (ECC), Dileep Singh, estimates that the added value of coconut in the Pomeroon alone is worth anywhere around $7 billion and it is an industry waiting to be tapped.

Among the products that can be produced are coconut oil, oleo-chemicals, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, detergents and biodiesel.
Though the value-added side of production has not been fully harnessed, De Silva said the coconut industry has been able to transform the lives of many poor farmers in the Pomeroon, because it is a vibrant and sustainable agri-business.
According to Singh, the successes of the coconut industry can be multiplied many times through investments from government.

“There are about 70,000 acres of land that are not cultivated. Imagine the amount of money that can be earned here, both in terms of regular coconut cultivation and from the value-added [sic] of coconut. But we need proper drainage and irrigation, canals, roads and assistance in pest and husbandry management. I believe if these things are done, the current G$1 billion generated from the Pomeroon annually will shoot up to anywhere around G$15 billion annually in a short space of time,” the chamber president told the Guyana Chronicle.

PERMANENT PRESENCE
The National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (NAREI), has been working with farmers to improve pest and husbandry practices, but Singh said the state agency needs a permanent presence in the Pomeroon, since farmers there also cultivate other crops.
Citrus, mango, avocado and ground provisions are among other crops that are cultivated in the sprawling Pomeroon basin.
“Our land has never failed us and government should put the necessary infrastructure in place to facilitate the growth and development of the coconut industry and for agriculture to remain a main pillar of Guyana’s economy,” he said.

Coconut is the third largest export crop in Guyana and government said it working to move the industry forward.
In the next five years, NAREI is expecting approximately 5000 acres of coconut plantations to be established in coconut-producing areas, the Government Information Agency said.
“When we start working on those we will be in a better position, you know, after we would have gotten the materials, I suspect at the end of the year or early next year to say definitively that we will be able to do tissue-cultured coconut materials in addition to the nurseries that we will be producing,” Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NAREI, Dr Oudho Homenauth said.

There are some 1,454 coconut farmers in Guyana, and Dr Homenauth emphasised the need for processing technology to be upgraded as well as continuous training and technical support for small-scale entrepreneurs for the manufacturing of value-added products.
Government intends over the next 10 years to position the coconut industry to experience consistent growth rates and to become a fully integrated economic partner at national, regional and global levels.
And with this in mind, it has developed a roadmap to ensure the sustainability of the industry by strengthening areas such as marketing, production and processing, research and development and finance for farmers.