Pres. Ali floats farmer’s markets again

Aug 25, 2026 News

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…as food CPI up by 5.1% in 12 months

(Kaieteur News) – In what has become a familiar refrain during spikes in household expenses, President Irfaan Ali announced on 18^th August that his administration is considering establishing permanent farmers’ markets across the country to cushion the rising cost of living.

“We may need to look at the creation of farmers’ markets across the country as a permanent part of our buying ecosystem, so that farmers have direct access to the market,” President Ali told a news conference. He noted that agricultural producers continue to complain that products are being sold at substantially higher prices once they reach consumers, suggesting that expanding farmers’ markets would allow producers more direct access to consumers and reduce costs and mark-ups along the supply chain.

Despite these repeated announcements spanning multiple budget cycles, household budgets remain under pressure. Official figures from the Georgetown Consumer Price Index (CPI) for July 2026 showed an overall monthly inflation movement of 0.1% to reach an index of 153.58. While the broader food category experienced a slight deflationary movement of 0.03% for the month from June to July, driven by drops in fruits (4.2%) and pulses (2.7%), several essential food sub-categories continued to experience price increases, including condiments and spices (2.6%), non-alcoholic beverages (0.5%), oils and fats (0.4%), cereals (0.2%), meats and fish (0.2%), and vegetables (0.2%). Over the past 12 months, the food category as a whole has risen by 5.1%, alongside overall CPI growth of 3.9%.

However, last Tuesday’s announcement marked the latest iteration of a cost-of-living proposal the administration has floated repeatedly over the past four years without establishing a lasting national infrastructure. In 2022, the Ministry of Agriculture issued a statement assuring that the government has been implementing measures to ease the cost of living for all Guyanese as promised in the national budget, recognising the spike in food costs while farm-gate prices remained low. To reduce these inefficiencies, Senior Minister in the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh, disclosed that the government would arrange monthly farmers’ markets across the country to help farmers find ready markets and help consumers benefit from buying directly from the producer.

Following that commitment, Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha assured producers in Region Six that “We will facilitate you; we will set out a place for you around the New Amsterdam area. We will advertise it well on a weekly basis. We could have a farmers’ market.” Minister Mustapha noted that the ministry planned to host the event at least once every month in all regions, stating, “I’m hoping that in each region in this country we can at least have these market once monthly… So, farmers and consumers are calling that they want these markets to be held more regularly, so what we are doing now as I said we’ll be going to other regions.”

When the initiative launched on the East Coast Demerara corridor, the Ministry of Agriculture deemed the event at the Lusignan Market Tarmac a massive success where consumers from Buxton and Mahaicony purchased produce like tomatoes, plantains, pumpkins, eggs, meats, and agro-processed items at reduced prices. Speaking at the tarmac, Minister Mustapha reiterated that “This is one of the measures that the PPP/C Government has put in place to assist both the farmers and the consumers. We spoke about this in the budget and we are already implementing it. We will be hosting similar activities across the country so consumers can rest assured that the Ministry of Agriculture and the Government of Guyana will continue to implement measures to help them… The response has been tremendous and persons can rest assured that this will not be a one-off activity.”

The pledge surfaced again in 2025 when General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), Bharrat Jagdeo, acknowledged at a public meeting in Enmore that more needed to be done to curb food prices. “The food prices, we did not have the same sort of success, and that is why in the next term we said we have to focus more on cost-of-living issues. We will get cheaper cooking gas [and] farmers’ markets,” Jagdeo noted, explaining that while local food supply was increasing, high transportation and imported input costs were preventing market prices from dropping. He added that the administration took a holistic approach to address the high cost of living, including utility subsidies and fuel tax removals, stating, “So, we have to make sure that we help people grow out of this. And we’ll do that by putting more money in your pocket, by taking away some of the costs from them so that they don’t have to fund these costs.”

The recurring promise appeared yet again in Dr. Ashni Singh’s 2026 Budget speech, where he stated, “We will also undertake the development of 100,000 acres of new arable lands, incentivise large, medium and small-scale farming, strengthen the agriculture value chain and promote greater use of smart and appropriate technologies, while establishing a network of permanent farmers’ markets to expand both domestic, export and value-added opportunities.”

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• Alcoholic beverages, Condiments & Spices, cost-of-living, farmer’s markets, household expenses

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