Dear Editor,
Upon his recent visit to the Soya and Corn trial plots up the Berbice River, President Ali clearly expressed his hope or wish for one or both of these crops to be the answer for the diversification of Guysuco. I am inclined to think that Guysuco owns the lands where the corn and soya trials are ongoing and the intent is to relocate Guysuco operations to that area if the trials are successful. One does not have to be an agronomist, horticulturist or whatever to know that if you have intentions of cultivating a crop on a large scale in an area, any trials to determine the viability of that crop in that area has to be done in the intended area to capture the main ingredient, mainly soil type and atmospheric conditions.
I would not want to think that the President at any time would have entertained the idea of testing corn and soya up the Berbice River with intent to replicate those trial results on Guysuco cane lands hundreds of miles away on the coast where the soil type and atmospheric conditions are different from the trial area. This sçenario begs a question… is the president really contemplating relocating Guysuco operations to the Berbice River bank if the corn and soya trials are deemed successful or was he entertaining the absurdity of replicating the test results on Guysuco cane lands? It won’t be surprising if the latter is true. Gov’ts have done sillier things in the name of expediency – the oil contract with Exxon is a quintessential example!
The APNU+AFC had already done the dirty job that the PPP couldn’t do – scaling down Guysuco. It would have served a better purpose for the PPP to have given the sugar workers that had lost jobs, the now proposed 250,000 in a phased out manner rather than to waste billions to attempt to resuscitate the dying industry – the resuscitation attempt did nothing to capture or alleviate the sufferings of those who had lost jobs. It would seem that the VP has now awakened to that reality. Hence the now proposed cash grant to Guysuco workers who lost jobs! The VP as opposition leader had confessed that “we (PPP Gov’t) should have done better with sugar”. It seems their learning curve in this area remains flat. The fact that President Ali is talking about diversification is a clear indication that he has little or no faith in the resuscitation attempt.
What is unfathomable is that despite the VP telling the budding Guyana Hemp industry that the cabinet has already given its “no objection” for the cultivation of hemp, hemp was not included in the trials as a possible replacement for sugar cane for Guysuco. Hemp is a versatile plant easy to grow and instrumental in the manufacturing of more products than crude oil. The president needs to explain why hemp was not shortlisted for trial like corn and soya.
Sincerely,
Rudolph Singh
