-Commended for local support in Agri sector

“OUR government’s vision for agriculture is a holistic approach to reduce unemployment, poverty alleviation, and promote economic development. We are indeed fortunate to have international and regional agricultural institutions such as IICA, that work closely with the Ministry of Agriculture in fulfilling the agriculture sector’s mandate,” Minister of Agriculture, Noel Holder said.

Minister Holder was speaking at the Celebration of the Inter- American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture’s (IICA) 44th year of operation in Guyana on Thursday, at its Guyana office on Brickdam, Georgetown. He highlighted that the Organization has been a significant player in restructuring and shaping the way the sector operates within the country.

He further said that the Ministry of Agriculture anticipates the continued assistance of the IICA for developing policies and regulatory frameworks as well as for establishing and implementing effective systems in the sector. In Addition, he applauded the IICA collaboration with National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (NAREI), to provide technical support to monitoring and evaluation.

Commending IICA on its development and investment towards Agro Processing in the sector, while explaining that this not only helps the persons in the sector in job creation for themselves, but that they could in turn create jobs for other persons.

IICA’s representative to Guyana, Wilmot Garnett, related that in addition to celebrating its 44th anniversary since being operational in Guyana, the organization is also celebrating 77 years in existence. He pointed out that IICA has made significant advances in the way the agriculture sector works in Guyana and that it is committed to continue facilitating those lending a hand to ensure the sector’s continued growth and development.

“Our new medium term plan 2018-2022, will be focusing on bio economy and production development, territorial development and family farming and we’re highlighting ‘Urban Farming’ this year”.

Garnett explained that IICA will be assisting farmers in the implementation of proper farming practices, “In collaboration with the New Guyana Marketing Cooperation, we will be focusing on crop production exercise, because unfortunately many of our farmers do not do simple book keeping, so we will be working with a number of our partners, as well as the Guyana School of Agriculture (GSA), and the New Guyana Marketing Corporation to ensure that we can assist these farmers in the proper farming practices, what that entails and how it would benefit them,” Garnett said.

He further related that IICA will continue its work in the areas of international trade and regional integration; climate change natural resources management of production risk; agricultural health and safety and food quality; gender and youth and innovation and technology.

IICAs also held its accountability seminar on Thursday, the seminar coincides with the ministry’s month-long celebration of agriculture advancement in Guyana.

At Thursday’s event, local producers, farming bodies and the New Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC) had the opportunity to exhibit their products to visiting dignitaries and special guests which included school children from various schools in the city.

Agriculture Month is being held under the theme “Sustainable Agriculture for ensuring Food Security and a Green Economy.”