LOOKING to position itself as a major player in the food industry, the country will soon begin examining how it can produce wheat competitively.

President, Dr. Irfaan Ali, while addressing private sector stakeholders at an event held recently at the National Milling Company of Guyana (NAMILCO) headquarters, said that although it has already been determined that the country can grow wheat successfully, the ultimate goal is to become a major supplier of the grain.

“We have to upscale testing and production,” the Head of State said.
Already, six strains of wheat have been tested.

Meanwhile, small plots of 320 lines and five varieties of at least one hectare each were sown at Sante Fe, Region Nine, in September.

“What the result has shown so far is that wheat can be successfully grown. Now wheat successfully grown competitively is another part of the equation that we have to address our minds to.”

He urged Seaboard Overseas and Trading Group, a subsidiary of NAMILCO, to partner with the government in its production of wheat as well as corn and soya beans.

“The food industry is different from agriculture production. Agriculture production is at the raw stage, the food industry requires a lot of processing, a lot of manufacturing, a lot of packaging and that is what we have to get ourselves into and that is where the revenue from oil and gas helps us to diversify the economy and build this new pillar,” he added.

The goal, the president explained is to produce as many raw materials as possible to tap into the lucrative food-production market, supplying not only the demands of the country but also the Caribbean Region.

Prices for wheat had skyrocketed globally due to the Russia-Ukraine war. Russia and Ukraine account for approximately 30 per cent of the world’s traded wheat.
To ease the negative economic impact felt locally, President Ali, in 2022, had announced that Guyana is exploring the possibility of sourcing a variety of wheat for local production.

Back in May 2022, Guyana received 49 lines of wheat from the Government of Mexico to start a trial phase. The indoor trial, which explored several varieties, was completed at the Burma Rice Station in Mahaicony, Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice).

Addressing the objective of the wheat trials in a previous interview, Minister of Agriculture Zulfikar Mustapha had said the aim is to have Guyana become self-sufficient by removing its dependence on imports.

“We are very determined! And as long as the trial is successful, we will be going to produce our own wheat because we can’t depend too much on imports… As a country, we have to ensure that we produce our own food and be self-sufficient,” he said.

Mustapha acknowledged that the pandemic played a major role in influencing the government to explore this project.

“We can have all the money in the world and we would have seen, during the pandemic, how many countries were suffering to get food because there was a scarcity,” Mustapha said, noting: “And in Guyana, we are very fortunate that we produce most of the food that we consume.”