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Region 10 Council meets with Alesie
The Regional Democratic Council (RDC) is in discussions with Dr. Turhane Doerga of the Alesie Group to expand cassava cultivation in Region Ten.
Regional Ten Chairman,
Renis Morian
Regional Ten Chairman, Renis Morian, has confirmed that he had two meetings with Dr. Doerga, IMC Chairman Orrin Gordon, and Head of the RDC Agriculture Committee, Douglas Gittens, to discuss the way forward.
Mr. Morian said that a cassava sample was taken and the council is awaiting determination of its suitability for the manufacturing process envisaged; if unsuitable, another sample from another farmer in another area will be submitted.
Once a suitable strain of cassava is identified, it would give rise to extensive cassava cultivation by farmers to meet the demands of the new enterprise. In a meeting with farmers recently in Old England, Linden, the Region Ten Chairman encouraged them to plant.
“Agriculture is the way forward, especially now that we are trying to get this deal with an investor, Linden will be on the go through agriculture. Plant cassava, sweet corn, cash crops,” he insisted. The farmers were enthusiastic and are ready to be part of the initiative.”
While visiting the community Morian said the Council is also taking note of lands available to facilitate similar ventures with the aim of scaling up agriculture in Region Ten. He said that while pepper has already been cited as a possible future investment, the RDC is presently looking at marketing one product at a time.
“So this is a sensitization stage to let you know that we are expanding agriculture and you can’t expand agriculture unless you get a market. So before we expand, we have to get a market. We’re trying to do them simultaneously, securing markets and produce and looking at the quality,” he said.
Anticipating approval of the cassava sample, the Chairman also told farmers he will not negotiate a price for them. “Once the sample that we sent up has been approved, it simply means that we would have to go into a lot of cassava production.
We wouldn’t approve prices in the office. We would call a meeting with the farmers themselves because we don’t want to sign on to a price that would be bad for the farmer.
We would want the farmers themselves to agree on prices. And we don’t want a price that is fixed for the next five years.
“We want a price that can be negotiated every year. When the time comes, we would want to bring the investor and sit with the farmers and get a consensus. When we get the document we will have farmers sign for farmers, I sign for the RDC and the investor signs for his enterprise.”
Morian claimed, “If that sample is accepted and the cassava in (other parts of) Region Ten don’t measure up to that sample, what we would have to do is to quickly spread the sticks around. It’s a Region Ten project across all barriers so we would want to share the (cassava) sticks.”
Meanwhile, Gittens said the processing of crude oil in the Region was also discussed. Morian added that while the proposal was made, a plan is yet to be submitted for the setting up of an oil refinery in Linden.
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