Support for small-scale farmers to increase, sustain income as Agri. Month commences

Small-scale farmers in Guyana will this month receive much-needed support in the form of training to improve and sustain their incomes.  This was revealed by Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha who spoke with the media on Monday at a ceremony to commence Agriculture Month.

Small-scale farmers often lack the resources and capacities to adapt to changes such as climate-smart agriculture and or to recover from disasters such as flooding. But now, this is all expected to change.

“The entire programme now is crafted for grass root people, where we can bring in grass root farmers, educate them, bring them into new crops and help them to go into smarter, climate-smart agriculture,” the Minister said.

Minister Mustapha added that the farmers will also be supported on “how to increase production and productivity but at the same time do agricultural more smartly and do agriculture in a way that is more modern.”

Agriculture Month 2022 is observed under the theme: ‘Championing food security through innovation, investment and resilience.’

“Since August of 2020 Guyana has been revitalising and repositioning its agriculture sector to respond to the global food crisis, to boost agricultural investment, build resilience including through diversification, modernization and climate-smart agriculture, foster greater innovation and competitiveness, and protect livelihood now and in the future,” Minister Mustapha said.

He further reiterated that the region’s food import bill must be reduced by 25 per cent by 2025.

“A thriving and robust agriculture sector is not just critical to Guyana’s future but also to the CARICOM region and the international community.

“The entire Caribbean is looking to Guyana for that leadership to lead the Agri-food system to reduce the food import bill of CARICOM,” Minister Mustapha stated.

It is for this reason that the government has implemented a wide range of transformative initiatives and projects in the sector to ensure resilience and sustainability.

And for the first time, Guyana’s Agriculture Ministry is chairing the CARICOM Ministerial Task Force with responsibility for agriculture.

“Today agriculture is at more heights where people are now coming in to take up this activity,” Minister Mustapha said while taking his staff for a fruitful and productive year for the sector.