While spending over $1.2 billion towards infrastructural development in Tacama, Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice) area towards livestock feed sustainability projects and other food security initiatives, government is exploring replication of similar projects across the country because of its success, Minister of Agriculture Zulfikar Mustapha has said.
At Tacama, corn and soya bean have been planted and reaped on a large scale, with the consortium that started that project already in the trial phase of planting over 2,000 acres of millet.
“We are looking at having the same kind of thing at other places…,” Mustapha told the Stabroek News, but was quick to point out that the idea is only in the discussion phase.
The agriculture minister said that at Tacama, where a pilot project was launched in 2022 with a local business consortium for the planting of corn and soya on a large scale, the government promised to partner and would invest in supplying a silo and drying facilities for the produce. Mustapha informed that those facilities have already been implemented and that the second batch of corn and soya products have been reaped, dried, and stored there successfully.
“That is the public/private partnership we are doing. We said invest and we will provide the infrastructure that is necessary. They are doing the planting and so on and we are taking care of roads [et cetera…],” he said. “The silo and drying facility? That was already set up and is in operation. Everything is complete and they are all working good,” he added.
Understandably proud of the accomplishments to date, Mustapha disclosed that when the head of the Islamic Development Bank (ISDB) was here this year, he was taken on a tour of the facility and was duly impressed.
However, the minister reminded that funding for the infrastructural aspects has not come from any foreign financial lending institution, but instead from state coffers.
When the construction of the facilities such as three 3,000-tonne silos and one 80-tonne-per-hour drying tower at the Tacama Landing were being executed, Mustapha had in March of this year, told this newspaper that in 2022, some $887 million had been budgeted to undertake infrastructural works needed to support the large-scale cultivation of livestock crops.
Of that amount, $426 million was budgeted for the rehabilitation of 47 kilometres of a vital Ituni-to-Tacama farm-to-market road, beginning from the junction of the Linden/Ituni road and heading east towards the Berbice River.
Senior Minister within the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance0 Dr Ashni Singh, during his 2022 budget presentation, had told the National Assembly that the government had committed $236 million for the procurement of a drying and storage facility and an additional $225 million for installation and other works.
In 2021, some $102 million was spent to begin rehabilitation works on the road.
The large-scale trial cultivation of corn and soya bean by the private investors was announced in 2021, as they stated it was being explored as a means to safeguard the country’s livestock feed supply through an initiative with the government.
Spearheaded by a consortium of businesses in the livestock production industry that includes Guyana Stockfeeds Inc, Royal Chicken, Edun Farms, SBM Wood, Dubulay Ranch, NF Agriculture, and Bounty Farm Ltd, of which David Fernandes is an executive, the trials began in 2021 with 250 acres of land owned by Alex Mendes of Dubulay Ranch. As a result, based on a successful trial, Fernandes, who leads the consortium spearheading the project, announced in December of last year, confirmation of plans for two crops per year, given the better-than-projected yields.
He had reflected on the occasion when the consortium members were asked if they wanted to invest.
“The president, when he asked if we wanted to go in this direction… I remembered Richard Branson [Virgin Group founder] who had said ‘when an opportunity is given, say yes because it may never come again,’ so I jumped at it. What surprised everyone is that we planted six months after that and did it in the middle of the floods and in the height of COVID,” he said.
For a project that carries a consortium investment of over half a billion dollars, Fernandes said that he was not afraid to invest his share, because with investments come risks.
Fernandes had in May of this year told this newspaper that the trials found that it was “very feasible” to not only plant the crops here but that two, instead of one crop was possible. It is against this background that work commenced at Tacama Gold Farms, a name given because of the colour of the corn and soya grains that will be planted there.
He has lauded government’s input and expressed thanks, saying it would not have been a reality if not for the vision of President Irfaan Ali and the support from the state.
“Government, they helped us with the machinery they had at that location. Obviously, we paid for all the labour and all the materials and so on, and the government, through National Drainage and Irrigation Authority [NDIA] helped us with the building of this ramp to take the limestone,” he said during an interview where he had also done a PowerPoint presentation.
“This here [the drying facility being set up] will be used by all who produce it in the region you know, not just one company. So, these things have been given to be used by whomever produces; not to be given just for one company. Whoever produces would have access to these facilities that are being built. That is the understanding. Like the roads being built right now, is not just benefiting our group, it is there for the country.”
Providing an update, he said that planting has now moved to millet, given the El Niño weather predictions and that process has gone smoothly, as they had already harvested more than 150,000 tonnes of produce from their second crops.
“The millet was chosen, not as a replacement for the corn and soya, but more for ground cover, because it has a good root system and does not require the [amount of] rainfall or water as corn or soya. So it is good and will cover the ground. We have planted 2,000 acres already…,” he updated.
“We don’t know what the rains will do, because we already had the dryer El Niño weather predictions and did not want to plant back the soya, so we are doing this and that has been going smoothly,” he added.
