The agriculture ministry is embarking on a test cultivation of corn and black eye peas which Guyana imports from Belize, with the hope of cultivating these crops locally.
Minister of Agriculture, Dr Leslie Ramsammy, said the ministry is implementing this plan which will see the crops being test grown, in small quantities, and after testing introduced to farmers for cultivation.
“I believe that we should not be importing black eye peas and corn, I believe that Guyana should be an important producer of black eye peas and corn…these are crops that Guyanese farmers can grow, so I have instructed the Guyana School of Agriculture (GSA) to use its land in Essequibo, and to plant 10 acres of black eye peas just to demonstrate it can be grown in Guyana,” Ramsammy said, according to a GINA report. The National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute was also instructed to work with the GSA to cultivate corn on 10 acres of land at Mon Repos to demonstrate to farmers that it can be grown locally.
The ministry hoped that these demonstrations, along with the Barbadian company Santa Fe growing corn in Region Nine, will inspire local farmers to cultivate these crops. “We are hoping that some of the farmers will take this on, so if not eliminating importation of those products that we can in fact reduce their importation,” Dr Ramsammy said.
