AGRICULTURE MINISTER, Zulfikar Mustapha, has reported that, in the 2022 budget, the Ministry of agriculture has made financial provision for specialists to be employed to advance several new initiatives that will be spearheaded by the ministry.

He made the announcement last Tuesday during the consideration of the Estimates & Expenditure for the Ministry of Agriculture.

While responding to questions from the other side of the House, the Government Member of Parliament disclosed that the Agriculture Ministry had previously engaged the Ministry of Public Service to ensure the required personnel is employed to fill these very important positions.

“When I spoke at the budget debates, I said that the ministry is embarking on a number of new programmes. We are also looking at specialised personnel to fill these vacancies. The ministry has since been working very closely with the Ministry of Public Service so that we can have specialised persons to fill these positions. We have aquaculture as an emerging specialised industry so we’ll need specialised personnel. We have new crops that were never grown in Guyana like corn and soya bean and other non-traditional crops. We are also concentrating on high-value crops so we need specialised people. We have been working assiduously to ensure we have these persons employed so that the ministry can be prepared to diversify and increase production over the next year,” Minister Mustapha said.

Minister Mustapha further stated that the process is ongoing and will continue until the most qualified candidates are employed.

The government, during its 2020 and 2021 budget presentations, highlighted the need to have new programmes added to advance the productive sectors. One such programme which falls part of the government’s agenda to advance the agriculture sector, while reducing the import bill for proteins used in the livestock sector, was the corn and soya bean project.

In 2021, the government had partnered with a team of local investors who began cultivating corn and soya bean in the Tacama Savannah. In 2021, $500 million was allocated to commence infrastructural works in the area to facilitate the trial exercise that was undertaken by the group.

That included the cultivation of 111 acres of soya bean, and five acres of corn, which yielded approximately 2.3 tonnes per hectare.

The initial aim of the government is to facilitate the cultivation of 56,000 acres or 22,400 hectares to be able to satisfy the local demand, after which, cultivation for export to markets in the region will be targeted.

Additionally, the government has also embarked on introducing large-scale production of high-value crops like broccoli, cauliflower and carrots.

President Dr. Mohammed Irfaan Ali recently launched the Agriculture and Innovation Entrepreneurship Programme which seeks to give budding agriculturalists an opportunity to contribute to the growth and development of Guyana’s agriculture sector, while earning substantial remuneration given the high market value of these crops.

This year, 25 shadehouses will be constructed as part of the first phase of the initiative. As the programme advances, up to 300 shadehouses will be constructed across the country.

Construction of five model shadehouses is currently ongoing at the National Agriculture Research and Extension Institute’s (NAREI’s) Mon Repos farm. These model shadehouses will be used to guide the beneficiaries on best practices and good crop husbandry to ensure they get the best results out of the project. (Ministry of Agriculture)