Agriculture Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy has said that government is positioning the local rice industry to emulate its Asian counterparts by embarking on a regime of diversification that would yield a range of high-quality byproducts that would be good enough to hold their own on western markets.
Speaking to the media last Friday evening at a Street Fair hosted by the Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC), Ramsammy told media operatives that experimental work was already going on at the Guyana School of Agriculture (GSA) “focusing on some newer products” that will be produced at a factory being established in Essequibo at a cost of $75 million. Ramsammy said government will put a team in place to manage the facility and it was hoping “that the farmers will take it over.” There will be no reimbursement for the cost of the factory, Ramsammy said.
The Minister disclosed that collaborative work between the GSA and the Agriculture Ministry included work towards the production of a rice cake.
“You go into the shops in the US or London where the diaspora lives and you see all this rice cake coming from Thailand, Vietnam and Nepal… We can do that right here… We have bought the machine and are experimenting now at GSA,” Ramsammy said. If it proves to be a viable option, he added, the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) “will procure some of the machines and put them in villages across the country focusing on women, single parents… creating employment and providing business opportunities for our people.”
Ramsammy said the overall aim of the exercise was to “propel the agro-processing industry, creating more opportunities for farmers, more employment in our country and then begin to export.”
With an appreciable crowd having turned out to witness the display of homemade craft and agro products on Friday evening the Minister of Agriculture alluded to what he said was a new generation of creative people who are “coming on board and using their creativity. We have moved beyond the run-of the mill products… There is a new dispensation in Guyana… Younger people are coming up with new things, new products that we are not used to in Guyana.” According to Ramsammy, it bodes well for Guyana that we can make use of our local products though he added that we are not entitled to expect that foreigners will buy our products if we ourselves do not have an appreciation of what we produce.
Ramsammy told reporters that it was interesting to note that consumers in North America and Europe were “adopting some of the very things we are using here in Guyana. He noted that sugar was now one of the world’s most used scrubs in the global cosmetics industry.
Ramsammy disclosed, meanwhile that government is to set up a semi processor for turmeric and other spices such as ginger, and black pepper at Hosororo so that farmers in that region can have their products semi processed before they reach Georgetown. He said that local manufacturers Sterling Products, “can take off all our turmeric as they currently import turmeric.” However, “it is too expensive to transport from Region 1 and other regions so we will semi process it and therefore reduce transportation costs.”
