The Mahaica, Mahaicony, Abary-Agriculture Development Authority (MMA-ADA) on Friday commissioned two long-reach excavators and a heavy-duty tractor valued at $91million.
Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha told the gathering at the event that the procurement of the new machinery was a clear commitment by the government to improve and increase production in the Scheme.
According to a release from his ministry, Mustapha also said that the MMA Scheme has the potential of producing enough agricultural commodities to supply the entire country.
“For this year, almost 76,000 acres (of rice) were cultivated, and to date, a total of 1,473,131 bags of paddy were harvested in the MMA Scheme alone. That is only 59% of the crop so imagine, when harvesting is completed we will have close to two million bags. We are looking to increase the acreage in this scheme because I was told that the scheme has the capacity to plant almost 108,000 acres. We’ve been working assiduously to put the necessary systems in place so that this can become a reality. We’ve moved the production of seed paddy in Region Five from 3,000 bags when we took over about 18 months ago to 30,000 bags last year. This year we’ll be expending another $55 million to upgrade and rehabilitate the seed paddy facility and increase production to approximately 60,000 bags,” he added.
In addition to the machinery, Mustapha also disclosed that the government was working to modernize the operations in the scheme.
“We’ve already purchased a drone to do surveying and mapping of areas in the scheme using GIS so that we can identify lands and know what is happening in areas that are not so easily accessible”, he said in the release
Mustapha also told the gathering that in addition to rice production, the government was also addressing livestock and cash crop issues.
“We are also looking to develop cattle pastures. I know you have almost 98,000 acres of land that can be developed into pastures. If we want to develop the livestock industry then we have to ensure we have proper pastures. The scheme also has 3,000 acres of cash crops under cultivation. I am mentioning these amounts of land for you to get an idea, as residents and farmers, of what you have right here,” he said.
Since taking office in August 2020, the MMA–ADA has already procured six excavators to service the scheme and assist farmers with their agricultural activities, the release added.
