President Donald Ramotar on Monday commissioned two laboratories at the National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute’s (NAREI), Mon Repos compound.
The Government Information Agency (GINA) said that the Biological Control and Tissue Culture Laboratories were constructed at the cost of $300M which was financed through a Government of Guyana and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) loan agreement.
GINA said that the Tissue Culture Lab, in addition to providing tissue culture plantlets, is also geared to carry out molecular studies in the plant sciences. Previously, NAREI had the capacity to produce 50,000 plantlets annually; however, this new facility has the capacity to produce in excess of 200,000 plantlets.
GINA added that the Biological Control Lab will cater for work in molecular biotechnology. This includes DNA analysis in the plant sciences for the profiling and characterising of new varieties.
President Ramotar said that, “the world that we are living in today is moving at a break-neck speed…science and technology is moving at a very rapid pace and it is also displacing jobs while creating new ones, but the new jobs that are created are for the people who are more educated…the workers of the future have to be highly educated people to attract investments and increase production in every way.”
The labs are part of the Ministry of Agriculture’s Diversification Programme.
“Labs like these become extremely important in this modern time for us to develop and advance safe food for our people and for the markets that we will sell our products to,” President Ramotar said, according to GINA.
The President said that there is need for the involvement of more young people in the sector.
Ramotar urged that students from secondary schools make more regular trips to the facilities at Mon Repos so that they can become more aware of the great possibilities of agriculture as a career.
He noted that while Guyana has been an agricultural country, it has to also move in the direction of industrialisation. However, the unavailability of cheap, reliable energy is a major hurdle.
Nevertheless, the Government has strengthened its resolve to ensure that the dream of hydropower is realised in Guyana.
NAREI’s Head, Dr. Oudho Homenauth said that the commissioning and operationalising of these labs is a milestone.
He added that the establishment of the Biological Control Lab will provide Guyana’s trading partners with the assurance that the fruits and vegetables exported meet the necessary phyto-sanitary requirements and are free of pesticide residues.
On August 14, the President commissioned the Livestock Diagnostic Laboratory, which is another state-of-the-art facility to deal with the treatment of animal diseases.
