In innovative push, GSA students make bread from rice, sweet potato

As Guyana continues to work on reducing its food import bill, students at the Guyana School of Agriculture (GSA) introduced a bread-making project aimed at reducing the import of wheat flour.

The students from GSA have created the bread using three non-traditional flours – rice, cassava, and sweet potato.

“You can incorporate locally produced and manufactured products like rice flour and cassava flour which make a really nice bread, we also have sweet potato bread here,” Akeem Williams, a food processing technician at GSA explained.

The bread is on display at the University of Guyana Institute for Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (UGIRIE) Second Exhibition of Innovations.

The exhibition is from Thursday to Saturday, at the university’s Turkeyen Campus. Over 40 innovations and applied research projects are on display, allowing researchers, students, entrepreneurs, and innovators to showcase their work.

The bread making project started as part of initiatives for Agriculture Month this year but Akeem hopes it can be sustainable.

He said the team is working to have the bread on the shelves of local supermarkets and is pleased with the reaction from the public thus far.

At the launch of Agriculture Month 2024, Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha said by 2025, the country would see a US$40 million reduction in importation, representing funds that can be used in other areas.

This is particularly noteworthy since Guyana is leading the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) plan to slash costly regional food imports by 25 per cent by 2025. Through this venture, countries agreed to grow more food, trade more among each other and import less from extra-regional sources.