REGIONAL Chairman of the Regional Democratic Council (RDC) Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Upper Berbice), Renis Morian, has announced that residents within the region can expect great plans for 2019.

According to a press statement from the regional administration, he made this disclosure after a meeting with Chairman of the Agriculture Committee.

Morian pointed out that in the meeting they were able to decide on a number of initiatives, projects and programmes which he said will help in boosting the agricultural sector significantly.

He revealed that the region which was able to achieve its first established agricultural co-op society, Madena Co-op Society Limited which has been operating on 500,000 plus acres has held discussions with the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority to assist with some drainage-related issues.

He said that officials of the NDIA have agreed to pay a visit in the new week, while they will explore opportunities and avenues with a view to lending support to the co-op society.
“We have a project document that we are about to complete, which will be sent to the minister of agriculture for some support in this area, and we are working to complete this document, so that we can get going,” Morian said.

The regional chairman noted that, taking into account that the co-op society has already begun working.

He disclosed that they are now seeking to have some 300 lime trees, 300 grafted orange trees and 300 soursop trees planted permanently in the first quarter of the year.
He said that this will be along with the regular cash crop plants that they will be planting. This, he noted, would be planted on the 500,000 acres of farmland that they have already secured.

He said that to further boost the knowledge and skills of those working along with the co-op society, a feed-and-exploration visit has already been planned with a view of examining and/or modelling their farms after what they have seen, so as to enhance the continued development of agriculture.

The regional chairman noted that they made their first visit to Madella to examine and review what other farmers there are doing. This, he stressed, will see the making of a recent visit with the primary aim of looking at the drainage structure; however, this was affected owing to rain and as such, they will undertake to revisit this so as to examine the drainage there. He went on to point out that at Milly’s Hide Out, because of the agricultural works there, they have begun working on expansion of the road.

“We are using our own equipment, plus with the support from residents we are able to widen the road as we seek to create a farm-to-market road there,” he said.
He added, “One of our primary plans in pushing agriculture in schools is to establish shade houses as we seek to have shade houses at the various secondary schools in the region. Some of these schools are Multilateral, New Silver City Secondary, Linden Foundation and Wisburg.

The regional chairman pointed out that his administration is looking at a regional model experimental farm, noting that it would be executed within one of the school’s compounds, but will be managed by the region.

“It’s an experimental project, so shortly we will be going out and looking at several schools, their security among other things so as to decide which school this project would be best suited for in terms of land availability,” he said.

He however noted that the project will also have some amount of involvement and participation by students, stressing that agriculture will continue to play a major role in the development of Guyana, declaring that the region has the funds for such an initiative.

“My focus this year however is to concentrate on investment in agriculture. I must say that they are several investors who are waiting and are awaiting because they have several issues; so we are hoping to build up a better relationship with Lands and Surveys so that these things can be processed more quickly… we also want to have a better working relationship with the National Drainage and Irrigation [Authority] because as you know they play a very integral part in terms of drainage and now they are tasked with doing drainage all over the country which is good for us.”

He added: “We plan a visit to the minister of agriculture before now and month-end as we want to outline to him what we have planned and therefore we are seeking his support. I must add that we went to Ebini and we are extremely impressed by what the Ministry of Agriculture is doing in Ebini, so the fact that I took my councillors there is a view for us not in terms of scale, but in terms of focus to replicate what is happening there.”

He noted further that the region has commenced plans for the its food and agricultural exhibition known as RACE. He pointed out that this year’s event is slated for September and said that they are hoping to do a number of smaller things.

“This year would be our second time holding RACE and we are hoping that as we move towards September, that we can do several smaller things in preparation” he said.

He noted that they are seeking to have some other traditional foods, about which several young people are unaware at several of the food fairs that the region will be hosting.

“They were some young people who came here and when I asked them about quinches, they don’t know about congotay; they didn’t know about a lot of food that forms part of our culture, so we are hoping that in these agricultural exhibitions we can introduce this and not just have the food, but have the method in how it is made,” he said
Morian declared that this is geared towards educating them, while allowing them to see what used to be done as the region’s administration seeks to encourage them to do some of these things.