OPPOSITION politics has a way of mistaking a six-month dip for a funeral. The APNU’s Agriculture Month question, “More Money, But Where Is the Production?”, is a fair thing to ask of any government. But its premise, that the sector is in sustained decline, collapses when set against the record.
Begin with the numbers the Ministry of Agriculture has put on the table. Real outputs in agriculture, forestry and fishing have grown at roughly 6.1 per cent a year since 2020, nearly three times the 2.1 per cent recorded in the five years before.
The sector’s real GDP climbed from G$270.4 billion in 2020 to G$363.4 billion in 2025. In nominal terms it more than doubled over the same period, though nominal figures mix price effects with output and cannot carry the whole argument.
Whatever else that is, it is not collapsing. It is also hard to square with the APNU’s own era, when the sector was valued at G$224.9 billion in 2015 and had slipped to G$192.2 billion by 2020.
Nor does the first half of 2026 tell the story the opposition wants. Yes, the sector contracted by 0.5 per cent, but that is against a punishing comparison: 11.1 per cent growth in the same period last year. The ministry traces the drop mainly to Other Crops, which fell 6.4 per cent.
Meanwhile, sugar grew 19.3 per cent, rice 4.4 per cent and fishing 4.1 per cent. The FAO’s August country brief forecasts record paddy production this year and a fifth straight year of rising rice exports, despite May floods and high fuel and fertiliser costs. Collapsing sectors do not set records.
Honesty, however, cuts both ways, and the government should not hide behind a favourable five-year average. A 0.5 per cent contraction is a real slowdown, and the ministry itself concedes it needs targeted intervention.
Other crops is where small farmers, vendors and household food budgets meet, so weakness there is felt at the market stall long before it shows up in a GDP table. Sugar remains a structural problem that one good half-year does not solve.
The budget’s own projections, which anticipated 9.8 per cent growth in Other Crops and a near-68 per cent sugar rebound this year, set a bar that officials will now be measured against.
That is where the APNU could have made a useful contribution. The government has raised agricultural spending from $84.9 billion to $113.2 billion in 2026, with drainage and irrigation funding rising from $46.2 billion to $81.9 billion. Such works take time to plan, procure, build and commission.
The right questions are about delivery: are the D&I projects finishing on schedule? Are acreage and yields rising? Are farmers’ losses falling, and are crop insurance and cash grants reaching those who need them? Those are tests of results, and the government should welcome them.
What the opposition has offered instead is arithmetic by anecdote: one allocation, one half-year, one conclusion. Weather, commodity prices, biological cycles and flooding all shape output, and any serious critic knows it. Pretending otherwise treats farmers as props rather than as people whose livelihoods depend on honest analysis.
Guyana’s agricultural transformation is real, measurable and still is unfinished. The government owes the public transparent progress reports on its capital works and a credible plan for Other Crops. The opposition owes it a more rigorous argument. Until then, the evidence favours the harvest over the headline.