Agriculture Minister, Dr Leslie Ramsammy says a new Memorandum of Understanding will be drafted between Guyana and Haiti to allow students from that country to be trained at the Guyana School of Agriculture (GSA) and for the production of fruits and vegetables.
The minister made this disclosure following a tour of the Saj Rice Mill in Region Five last week accompanied by Haitian Commerce and Industry Minister Wilson La Leau and Minister of Agriculture Jacques Thomas, a report from the Government Information Agency (GINA) said.
According to Ramsammy, the MoU will also provide for collaboration in the areas of fruits and vegetable production and other areas.
“Guyana can offer a great deal to Haiti, we are not where we used to be eight years ago where we depended on other people for help, we are now in a position where we can help, in this context we are not looking at Haiti as just a market,” he said.
“Eleven million people represent a big market for Guyana, whether it is rice, sugar, fish or poultry, but our interest in Haiti goes beyond Haiti as a big market, we see Haiti as a sister a partner, where we can work together,” he said.
Ramsammy also referred to the recently signed MoU to enhance Guyana’s traceability capacity. “We signed [an] MOU because Haiti has developed a traceability system that we want to piggy back on so we can build our own traceability system. Without it we cannot continue to export into the United States, Canada into Europe,” he said.
The minister also revealed plans “to see how we could support Haiti in building some of that and at the same time Haiti has an excellent reputation in selling coffee and mangoes in Europe and North America and that is an area we can learn from them. He further revealed that the tour of the mill was planned while he was in Haiti as he had revealed that Haitian Saj-Steven Angele Jeff Khauly has been operating a mill in Guyana since 2006 under a 10-year lease.
The Saj mill has a good relationship with local farmers and had invested significantly in modernising the leased mill. The facility now boasts new equipment and a new generator and the company has indicated interest in extending its lease to 20 years, GINA said.
The two Haitian ministers agreed on the importance of partnerships with Guyana and Caricom countries. Agriculture Minister Thomas said that agriculture is one of the many areas in which Haiti is seeking to strengthen its partnership with Guyana and Caricom.
