FARMERS play a crucial role in the well-being of Guyanese, so it is encouraging and satisfying to see Agriculture Minister, Zulfikar Mustapha, and Attorney-General, Anil Nandlall, teaming up to solve land issues that concern farmers. This government holds a close bond with people of the land, and farmers historically have looked for justice and fair play within the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), a party that became more of a national socioeconomic movement than only a political entity. Farmers know that they could count on this government to not only solve their issues, but to fuel their livelihood and ensure the small-farmer agriculture industry thrives.
Guyanese love going out to the markets around the country, at Stabroek Market and Bourda, and also Mahaica and Mahaicony, New Amsterdam, Bartica, Parika, Linden, Charity and Anna Regina. It is almost a cultural habit for Guyanese to go out browsing markets and checking for deals on fresh fruits and vegetables and chatting with their farmers with much laughter and good cheer.

This nation enjoys the enviable position of maintaining a national cadre of homestead farmers and solo entrepreneurs who work the land, rather than handing over the country’s food supply to big industrial concerns and megafarms. Small farmers take care of their farms with loving care, and so today Guyanese enjoy fresh, organic food, with fruits and vegetables fresh off the land. While the rest of the world frets about processed food and seeks hard to find organic and healthy fresh food, like glutten-free stuff, Guyanese could just trudge over to their local market and pick up organic fresh fruits and vegetables and ground provision with such ease. Given the fine tropical weather of the land, Guyana is blessed with rich, fertile land on its coastline, and much of it is under farming, spreading from Berbice all across Demerara and through Essequibo. Small farmers play a dominant role in the food industry, and this is somewhat unique in the world. In developed countries, there is a big angst among people about processed food that industrialised food processing companies unleash on the society. Even apples and mangoes in these countries are sprayed with preservation chemicals.

Tomatoes are picked green and sprayed with carbon dioxide to ripen so they stay longer on the shelf. Many countries that lack tropical weather cannot even grow their own fresh fruits and vegetables for much of the year, and depend on long transport routes to supply needs and bring in food supplies. So a big advocacy and activist health sector exists around the world for people to have access to organic, fresh, chemical-free fresh food. Some countries even ban fresh milk from being sold to the public, demanding that dairy farmers pass their milk through industrial processing. All these issues, Guyana does not face. This land has an abundance of healthy fruits and vegetables and milk and eggs. And so it is good to see government, with these two ministers, taking such an interest in making sure Guyanese farmers are happy and could focus on their farms, rather than worry about land issues and even about drainage and irrigation. Minister Mustapha is travelling the country personally, and making sure that drainage and irrigation is efficient and functional. The image on social media of him in long boots walking on mud dams to access farming country, talking and interacting with farmers, that is on-the-ground servant-leadership every farmer welcomes.

Guyana has always encouraged a robust agriculture industry, with rice, sugar, and cash crops playing a big role in the national economy, in fact since the very formation of the nation under the British. Most Guyanese grew up with a kitchen garden in the backyard, and with open markets all across the country flourishing with affordable fresh food just harvested from sunny farmlands. Many of the country’s doctors and lawyers and achievers would have had farmers in their background, funding them to study and self-develop. The role of farmers in the country’s history and development is indisputable, and the PPP/C Governments always recognised and acknowledged this fact. This is a country that loves its farmers, recognising the value of these hard working men and women who bend their backs in the hot sun and brave rainy days to cultivate the earth, to plow the land and feed the society. Everywhere across Guyana, farmers live and work, humble, quietly planting and reaping and bringing their produce to markets, waking up in the wee hours of the morning to start their day. They are the most beautiful people of the land, full of cheer and good stories and loud laughter and healthy and strong with sun-weathered tough skin and hardened wisdom.

It is a great thing that Guyana maintains such a farming community, and does not industrialise its food production and food processing system. Even though there is a growing export sector for fresh food and fish, supplying the local food needs is the tremendous work of local farmers. As the country leaps ahead into massive progress and prosperity, one hopes that the society would always maintain this national army of small land cultivators who mark the earth with the soles of their feet and their planting fingers, toiling the land with a song in their hearts as they feed Guyanese healthy, fresh, alive food. Over the years, Attorney-General Nandlall showed great care and love for farmers, working with many of them to solve issues at the Mahaica-Mahaicony-Abary (MMA) scheme, and through Region Five. With Minister Mustapha, farmers are now engaged fully with government, with the minister showing deep passion for their welfare. Society tends to take some things that become embedded and normal, and as natural as the sun, for granted. Guyanese farmers play such an embedded, natural role in the nation, that most citizens do not think twice of the daily contribution to the national welfare from them. It is good to see that ministers of the government recognise their value and worth and are committing to make sure their problems are solved with satisfaction and morale-boosting efficiency. In farmers, the nation embodies a wealth of souls taking care of the welfare of Guyanese. Taking care of them is a national duty.