Guyana is targeting the ‘topping’ the 710,000 tonnes’ rice production target of set in the country’s 2024 budget, an accomplishment that will provide an encouraging measure of assurance in circumstances where the rice industry is challenged to both meet domestic consumption needs as well as to shoulder its responsibility to the wider regional needs in the context of helping to meet the food security challenges facing the wider Caribbean.
Recently released official information on the state of the rice sector ‘tags’ Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha as saying that the local rice industry can indeed accomplish that goal given performance indicators that are emerging from the sector at this time. The minister’s observation was reportedly made during a community engagement at Number 10 Village, Region Five, on Tuesday.
With rice having to shoulder the threefold responsibility of meeting local needs, targeting potentially lucrative markets and contributing to Guyana’s wider role in responding to the region’s food security challenges, that the country’s rice production target can indeed be surpassed, the Agriculture Minister has reportedly been ‘keeping tabs’ on the rice sector through visits to the country’s rice-growing communities.
While rice availability is usually not a challenge for the local market, the factors of the current regional food security challenge, on the one hand and the global demand challenges arising out of increasing levels of food insecurity at the wider global level, demands that Guyana pay particular attention to both meeting domestic needs and support wider regional demand.
That stepped up rice production now appears to be a preoccupation, locally, the minister disclosed that the rice sector, having planted 205,000 acres for the 2024 first crop, it could increase production for the second crop to around 230,000 acres in the hope of surpassing the 710,000 tonnes’ production target envisaged for this year. Hopes for a stellar performance by the country’s rice industry is, not infrequently, tempered by intervening considerations, including the vicissitudes of the weather and pest infestation.
Setting aside domestic demand and the opportunities arising out of a lucrative international rice market, Guyana’s rice industry is also hinged to helping meet the demands arising out of the region’s food security vulnerabilities and the extent to which Guyana’s agriculture sector, the largest in the region, will have to take the lion’s share of the responsibility for meeting food needs in the weaker countries on the region.
