Overall, the agriculture sector is looking at growth of close to 3% for 2010, Minister of Agriculture, Robert Persaud says.
“Other than sugar…the sector has done well”, he told reporters at a press briefing at the Ministry’s Boardroom yesterday. “With that growth, it tells us too that the investments we’ve been making as a government, the work of our Grow More Food campaign certainly has been paying off and yes there are things that we need to do and we need to do better and which we’ll be giving a lot of focus to. There have been some setbacks, there has been some inadequacies, all of us need to do perhaps, a bit better in the period going ahead so I’m not for one moment saying that we’ve done everything well…but certainly it has been an impressive performance”, he said.
Outlining a number of achievements and activities encompassing the sector over the past year, yesterday, Persaud noted that financial facilities for famers will be unveiled shortly. The agreements with the Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry (GBTI) and the Institute of Private Enterprise Development (IPED) will see some $600M being made available to farmers, targeting the livestock, fruits and vegetables and aquaculture clusters under an ongoing programme.
He said that figures for exports for 2010 thus far indicate an increase of 7.4% or 612 tonnes higher than the corresponding period last year. The major fresh commodities exported regionally were pumpkins, watermelon, dried coconuts, plantains, limes, eddoes and pineapple. According to information from the Ministry, as at November, the packaging facility processed 825 628 kilogrammes of produce compared to 1 502 724 kilos last year.
In a Stabroek News series on the Grow More Food campaign, farmers have generally expressed pessimism over their prospects and outlined a litany of complaints about the state of the agriculture sector. In particular they have complained about the absence of markets, low prices and the reign of the middlemen. They have also not generally seen themselves as contributing to the export drive. Meantime, Persaud said that discussions are still taking place on crop insurance with the Caribbean Risk Insurance Facility. And an agreement with the European Union regarding mangroves has been signed and the first tranche made available to the Ministry of Finance.
Wirth regard to forestry, for this year, there was strong performance and a 3% increase over 2009 is projected in the production of logs, lumber, sawnwood, and plywood. Export volume of forest produce for 2010 increased by 38% over last year with the export value being US$51M, 13% over 2009.
