President Ali says
discusses establishing IICA School of Agriculture
PRESIDENT, Dr. Irfaan Ali, on Tuesday, echoed his undying commitment to transforming the agricultural sector into one that shines as a major income-earner for men, women and especially young people.
The President made these remarks during a discussion with the directors of the Inter-American Institute for Agricultural Cooperation (IICA), including Director General Manuel Otero.
Dr. Ali is currently in Costa Rica where he will be honoured with the prestigious IICA award for his remarkable leadership in food security and sustainable development.
Speaking on the steady progress Guyana is making when it comes to reducing its food import bill, the President said: “We have set ourselves a goal of reducing the food import bill in CARICOM by 25 per cent by 2025,” adding that this goal must be coupled with critical policies, budgetary allocations, among other necessities.
Dr. Ali then went on to say that his administration is working tediously to position Guyana’s agricultural sector along with the food production system into a business market for citizens.
The President said: “Agriculture is not just the production of food. For us agriculture is a business; it must be able to be competitive, it must be able to earn, it must be able to be profitable [and] it must be able to generate proposals that are bankable and make sense for the private sector.
|
It must be attractive to women, young people, it must be a science that is ongoing and that is what we are trying to do in Guyana.”
Speaking more on women playing a vital role in the development of the agricultural sector, the Guyanese Head of State said the government is already rolling out initiatives to ensure that both women and young people are involved.
“We have already launched a programme in Guyana where we said we want 35 per cent of all the new farms to be owned by women and young people and we are already on target with this,” he related while expounding on the vast number of opportunities in Guyana for these groups.
Striving to reengineer the entire food production system, the President said: “… Only this morning we discussed with IICA, a partnership that will see us working on the creation of a regional food hub, digitization and communication strategy to ensure that all the partners are involved…”
He further stated that there were discussions with the IICA about establishing institutions that will aid in achieving this goal. For instance, converting Guyana’s School of Agriculture into a regional one, that carries the IICA brand.
Moreover, while acknowledging the gap in achieving food security and issues that have disrupted the objective, the President pointed out that the IICCA can play a substantive role in bridging this.
“IICA has an important responsibility in bridging the inequality gap between and among countries with access to technology, access to data, access through sources, building human capacity, training and development. So it’s bringing together all of these factors and positioning them in a way that will make us food secure but also food rich,” adding that from an environmental and economical perspective, producing nutritious food is a main priority.
He then went on to say: “So, we in Guyana are positioning ourselves to function in a world in 2030 and beyond where every major conversation on food security we will be at the table,” adding that the same goes for climate and energy security.
