A Barbados company is pushing ahead with a mega farm in Region Nine which will have rice as its centre piece.
The Government Information Agency last night said that along with the cultivated areas, Santa Fe has almost completed a state-of-the-art rice mill with huge silos which will be used to store the paddy harvested from the large fields.
GINA said that the project – operated by the Simpson family of Barbados – will be expanding the current cultivation by an additional 980 acres by the end of June this year. This will make it a total of 1000 acres of upland rice being cultivated with the zero tillage technology/method.
Thus far 120 acres of rice are under cultivation.
Recently, Minister of Agriculture, Dr Leslie Ramsammy, Minister in the Ministry Alli Baksh and a team from the Ministry visited Region 9 (Upper Takutu/Upper Essequibo) where they interacted with the Blue Wave investors and staff.
GINA said that the project is being managed and supervised by Guyanese Richard Vasconcellos.
The venture is being undertaken through a combination of local and international expertise, GINA said. Of the 60 employees on the site, 57 are Guyanese from Region 9 and the remainder are Brazilian consultants.
Ramsammy thanked the Simpson Family from Barbados for responding to Guyana’s call for agricultural investment. Discussions and the strategy established for this project commenced in 2010 with former President Bharrat Jagdeo.
“This is another example not only of the Jagdeo Initiative working, but the amount of food that will be produced at Santa Fe will be beyond anything that Region 9 can consume, and therefore Santa Fe is meeting another objective of the Jagdeo Initiative which is that Guyana becomes firmly established as the food basket of the Caribbean,” Ramsammy stated.
The rice mill at the Santa Fe farm, Region Nine is still under construction
“What I am seeing here in Santa Fe is an impressive operation and it is multi-purpose,” Baksh said.
He noted that the project is intended to be extended and will see not only the cultivation of rice, but soya beans, rearing of cattle, sheep, aquaculture and pigs in the future.
“This is a vast investment, and, we from the Ministry of Agriculture are very satisfied so far. Looking at this project at its initial stage a lot of investment has already been done,” the Minister acknowledged.
GINA said that the Santa Fe Project which is taking an Integrated Mega Farm approach is expected to utilise the savannahs for soya beans, as well as corn cultivation. This will help the Caribbean reduce its total import of these essential foods from North America and other Regions and allow for trading and expanded markets within the Region.
It is also cultivating cassava, watermelons, passion fruit and other cash crops as well as some other perennials.
GINA said that Santa Fe’s Consultants assured Ramsammy that they will share all their knowledge and skills with persons manning other projects such as the St. Ignatius Shade House project and the Moco Moco rice/beans project, hence reducing cost, and providing the necessary skills to villagers.
