A GOVERNMENT is judged less by its speeches than by what a family can afford at the market on a Saturday morning. By that measure, Wednesday’s launch of a weekly farmers’ market at the Sophia Market deserves applause.
It is a practical answer to a practical problem, and it reflects the consistent philosophy that President Irfaan Ali has pressed for years, price stability is built through production, competition and smart fiscal policy, not slogans.
The logic is refreshingly simple: farmers rise early and work until late in the evening, yet too often the reward does not match the effort. Meanwhile, consumers pay far more than the farm-gate price suggests they should.
President Ali has named this gap himself, pointing to cases where produce sold by farmers at a base price is marked up significantly before it reaches the shopper. A market that connects grower and buyer directly narrows that gap.
The farmer earns more, the consumer pays less, and the only party squeezed is the unnecessary middle layer. Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha was right to say that farmers must now be allowed to get their benefit and their reward.
Critically, this is not an isolated gesture. The weekly Sophia market sits alongside monthly farmers’ markets in various regions, and it fits within a wider strategy.
Budget 2026 is, in the president’s words, a journey of continuation, one that aims to ensure price stability for food, expand local production, cut the cost of local production and strengthen small and medium enterprises. Heavy allocations for drainage and irrigation will open tens of thousands of acres of new farmland. More output means more supply, and more supply is the surest long-term route to lower prices.
The same thinking runs through the government’s broader relief measures: the continued removal of excise duty on gasoline and diesel, support for farmers facing higher fertiliser costs, and subsidies that keep electricity affordable.
Those policies cut the cost of production at its source, which is exactly where lasting food price stability begins. The results are visible: Guyana’s inflation has remained modest, with the Georgetown index moving just 0.1 percent in July, even as households across the world endure far steeper increases.
Honesty also demands acknowledging what the president has said plainly: there is no single magic tool. Grants support vulnerable families but cannot, on their own, resolve structural pressures.
Global shocks in fuel, fertiliser and shipping are real, and Guyana, despite being an oil producer, still imports refined products. That is why the push for a local refinery, expanded fuel storage and domestic production of goods such as bottled water, matters. This multi-dimensional approach is the mark of a government treating the cost of living as a long-term responsibility rather than a news cycle.
Critics will say that farmers’ markets have been floated before. Perhaps, but the answer to that is execution, and the Sophia market is a concrete, scheduled, recurring step. Success will depend on consistency, on drawing enough farmers and shoppers, and on keeping prices genuinely lower. Those are challenges worth meeting, and the ministry has shown it is willing to meet them.
Agriculture Month’s theme, “Innovate, Nourish, Grow,” captures the ambition. Let Guyanese shoppers take the minister up on his invitation, fill their baskets at Sophia, and let the market prove its worth. When farmers prosper and families save, the whole nation grows stronger.
