The Minister of Agriculture should be careful with his pronouncements

Aug 01, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
At a meeting held on July 13, in the board room of the Region 10 Democratic Council, Minister of Agriculture (MoA), Noel Holder, announced that the Immediate Savannahs will be the new agricultural frontier for Guyana. He outlined the MoA’s strategy to commence large scale agricultural production needed to fight climate change by moving agricultural activities inland from the low-lying coastland to higher ground.
To assist in this transformation, the Caribbean Development Bank has approved a grant of US$295,000 for technical assistance to enable the Government to identify agricultural areas most vulnerable to climate change and to assist in the better planning of its investment programs for the adoption of new climate smart agricultural practices. Further, the Inter-American Bank has approved $105.7M for a proposed sustainable development agricultural program to cultivate such crops as corn, soya-beans, and orchard crops in addition to cattle rearing.
During governance by the late Prime Minister, Burnham, his then Minister of Agriculture, Jordan, had identified Ebini in the Immediate Savannah as a very suitable area for corn production and sustainable agricultural production. Approval was given for project execution and Minister Jordan immediately used public funds to purchase expensive farm equipment under shady circumstances which were delivered and stored in a bond on the Berbice River before any feasibility study was done or detailed agronomic analysis and irrigation needs for corn cultivation carried out.
The project never got off the ground as the soil was found to be deficient in nutrients for corn cultivation while irrigation was not available in quantities required to sustain crop growth. As a result of this debacle, Minister Jordan was relieved of his duties. Minister Holder should be aware also that many of the cooperative farms which were established under the former PNC Government failed for lack of good planning, farming skills and social discord among their members.
Minister Holder should be prudent in his pronouncements regarding massive agricultural development in the hinterland savannahs and elsewhere as without proper plans in place with adequate data on agronomics, drainage, irrigation, infrastructures, market availability, management capability, etc., no agricultural project could be successfully developed. The areas now under consideration have no significant number of skilled farming laborers waiting to be employed as claimed, only subsistence farmers.
Climate change is only one of several factors adversely affecting agricultural production and development in Guyana. For example, rice farmers along the coast experience flooding of their lands at every heavy downpour while during the growing season the young rice plants are starved of irrigation because the infrastructures in place to provide them with the needed services for efficient and high yield crop production are either broken and/or poorly maintained. The sugar industry is rapidly shrinking not because of climate change but as a result of high production costs, low commodity price, labor strife, falling production and poor management, all of which have taken their toll.
The implementation of climate smart agricultural practices to improve crop yields and diversification and hence development of the country’s economic base lies in improving falling crop yields and labor productivity of what is already being grown on the coastland rather than blindingly shifting and elusively seeking out solutions to the global problems of climate change by developing agriculture in the immediate savannahs where much is yet to be learned for successful crop production.
The MoA does not have the technical know-how, skilled personnel and financial resources for massive agricultural extension in the hinterland savannahs and therefore the schemes being pursued with seed money are only likely to produce a herd of ‘white elephants’ foraging the immediate savannahs blindly seeking out those elusive crops and their varieties to better manage global weather changes than their cousins on the coastland.
Charles Sohan

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The Minister of Agriculture should be careful with his pronouncements

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