– as gov’t expands sector, refutes opposition’s claims that initiatives not benefiting all citizens, hinterland regions

– defends massive budgeted funds for agriculture in National Assembly

DEFENDING the mammoth budgeted allocation of $97.6 billion for the agriculture sector in Guyana’s 2024 fiscal package, Agriculture Minister, Zulfikar Mustapha on Wednesday said more women and youth are being involved in the sector.

Mustapha, during his presentation to the National Assembly on day three of budget debates, said that the government has begun the expansion of many major projects to support farmers and increase the country’s food production across all the regions.

This was contrary to what the minister’s opposition counterpart, Vinceroy Jordan argued during his presentation, which opened the day’s proceedings.

Jordan, in his contribution to the debates, said that the funds allocated to the sector does not outline the ‘geographical needs’ of all the stakeholders, especially those in the hinterland communities.

In response, Mustapha referenced the establishment of the Agriculture and Innovation Entrepreneurship Programme, which was launched by the government back in 2022 and has since seen the increased production of high valued crops through the establishment of shade houses.

The minister mulled plans to further expand this project, stating that it will be expanded to Regions Two, Five and 10.
“We are empowering young people…we are making young people shareholders of companies, we have the agriculture and Innovation Entrepreneurship Programme that was launched by His Excellency to date we have over $25 million in that company and young people will receive benefits from that company as shareholders …we have an objective in the Ministry of Agriculture where 35 per cent of young people and women have to be involved in all the projects of this ministry,” Mustapha said.

Further outlining the expansion of the sector, Mustapha reiterated that focus has been placed to advance the agriculture sector in every region across the country.

Providing facts to defend his arguments, the Minister said: “In Region One, we turned that region into the spice region in our country. We have turmeric, we have ginger, we have nutmeg and those crops are being expanded.”
“As I am speaking today, we have 300 acres of ginger that will be harvested shortly where we will have two million pounds of ginger coming from Region One. We have $28 in planting material that we have distributed to Region One,” he added.

Aside from this, the government, he noted, has invested in agro-processing facilities to add value to farmers produce, not only in that region but across the country.

Projects like these, Mustapha said, are being replicated in several other hinterland regions contrary to what the opposition has said.

Turning his attention to sugar, a sub-sector that has over the years garnered much attention due to the controversial closure of the country’s sugar factories by the now opposition, Mustapha said the industry is now being revitalized.

And although, Member of Parliament, Jordan said the sugar industry was thriving and maintained that the opposition had a clear plan to advance the sector, Mustapha provided statistics to the national assembly refuting this.

“The decline of the sugar industry did not start under the PPP/C government, I will give the facts…in 2014 the last year when we were in office sugar grew by 16 per cent we made a target of 216,357 tonnes in 2015 when they took over in March the sugar industry started to decline it had gone to seven per cent increase at that point, but from 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 the sugar industry declined by 21 per cent, 25 per cent , 24 per per cent, 12 per cent,” Mustapha said.

In the 2024 fiscal package $6 billion has been budgeted to support the sector.

In 2017, the coalition government had announced the closure of several sugar estates across the country, leaving thousands of persons without jobs or sources of income. The move saw four sugar estates being closed and over 7,000 sugar workers losing their jobs.

To date, some over 8,100 employees were hired across the industry.