President Bharrat Jagdeo made 5,000 acres of farmland available to Essequibo farmers and urged them to capitalise on the global food shortage by meeting local and regional consumption.
During a meeting at Aurora, Jagdeo asked interested groups about their “preferred government assistance in this regard,” as the increasing market prices for commodities could be to their benefit. According to a Government Information Agency (GINA) press release, Jagdeo said the region’s food bill was about US$3 billion and this could increase to US$6 billion owing to rising food prices. He urged the farmers to take up the challenge of providing the region’s food, something he had earlier suggested to Caricom, but “which was not taken seriously as most Caricom countries were focused on other initiatives such as tourism.”
“We have to make sure in this region that we focus on food security,” Jagdeo told farmers, after listening to their suggestions about the assistance they needed to increase cultivation. The farmers agreed to accept assistance from the government and repay the administration after production. Government said it would ensure that drainage and irrigation was taken care of, access roads to farming areas constructed and land for cultivation empoldered. Meanwhile, the President directed Minister of Agriculture Robert Persaud to ensure that soil tests and studies were carried out on the allotted land before he met farmers again in a month’s time.
