ONE person has been arrested for the poisoning of coconut trees at Hope Estate, East Coast Demerara and is said to be cooperating with the police.

Recently, 18 bearing coconut trees were vandalised by persons at Hope Estate. The Ministry of Agriculture has since warned that it will not sit idly by and allow the vandalism to continue.

Agriculture Minister Noel Holder, in condemning the action, said vandalism remains a cause for concern, since it undermines the progress made at Hope Coconut Industries Limited (HCIL).

According to the minister, all efforts will be made to ensure that the incident is an isolated one, and is calling on the public to exercise maturity.

“Government will not tolerate people who vandalise any structure, and in this case, it’s our coconut farms. While we are willing to work in rebuilding our coconut farms, incidents such as these can only hurt the industry,” the minister said.

The HCIL and the National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (NAREI), have been working around-the-clock to ensure farmers have readily available top- quality coconut seedlings.

Already, nurseries are being managed in the Pomeroon with farmers from the coconut-growing regions taking full advantage of the programme.

Only recently, the Ministry of Agriculture through assistance from the Mexican Government, received 450 tissue culture samples as part of the first phase of the programme to aide diversification.

The second batch of tissue culture is expected to arrive in Guyana by July.

HCIL General Manager Rickey Roopchand expressed disgust at the incident and called on members of the farming community to work with HCIL to ensure that the work of the ministry is not stymied.

He added that already much is being done at the level of the board to enable farmers to not only benefit from quality coconut seedlings, but to also expand their services to include value-added commodities.

The HCIL this year will commence the construction of a coconut water bottling factory, which will be used to process coconut water for export.

This venture by the HCIL, according to Roopchand, will see the ministry buying coconuts from local farmers to supplement the production of bottled coconut water, which will be sold to local, regional and international markets.