IN light of the growing food production, the government will soon set up an agriculture section in each school, facilitated by the ministries of agriculture and education.
This announcement was made, on Monday, by Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha, during remarks at the World Food Day exhibition and plant distribution exercise at the Georgetown Cricket Club.

Guyana’s current situation involves a significant dependency on traditional crops, but this policy change will support the government in accomplishing its overarching food security aims.
Over the past three years, the minister stated that the sector’s diversification has led to the creation of the Agriculture and Innovation Entrepreneurship Programme (AIEP), also known as the shade house initiative.

Minister Mustapha underscored that it is the brainchild of President, Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali aimed at giving youth the experience of growing high-value crops in shade houses.
“NAREI has already procured one hundred shade houses that we will move to different parts of the country to involve young people,” the minister underscored.
So far, there are over 200 young people managing the shade houses.

“We have seen a number of young people coming forward…people who are graduates from the Guyana School of Agriculture…graduates from the University of Guyana…the University of the West Indies are now coming forward. They are now involved in the programme and they are now delivering the programme,” Minister Mustapha said.
This is a significant increase since the launch of the AIEP initiative in January 2022 where President Ali announced the provision of resources and materials to develop 25 shade houses in the first phase of the programme for the production of high-value crops such as broccoli, sweet pepper, bell peppers and parsley.
This initiative is projected to provide benefits to a total of 2,210 Agri-entrepreneurs.

According to the minister, more details of the agriculture section in schools will be announced shortly.
As a result of the surge in production of these high-value crops, there is now a readily accessible market locally and regionally.