PRIME Minister Dr. Keith Rowley is selling the country’s rice mill while Guyana has just exceeded its mid-year production target.
This graphically shows the sharp contrast in regional leadership, especially amid the Caricom Food Plan which aims to cut imports by 25 per cent in a year’s time.
The divergent developments would also lead to Trinidad and Tobago buying more rice from Guyana and other countries and sending up its $7.3 billion annual food import bill.
Rowley recently confirmed a report first carried in CounterPunchTT that an Indian enterprise is buying National Flour Mill’s (NFM) plant at Carlsen Field.
Guyana, meanwhile, has grown 362,030 tonnes of rice in the first half of the year, outstripping its target.
The Guyana Rice Development Board attributed the increased production to new and innovative planting initiatives introduced by the Agriculture Ministry.
Guyana is aiming for 2024 and 2025 targets of 710,000 and 750,000 tonnes respectively,
In T&T, Indian-owned Haryana State Cooperative Supply and Marketing Federation is buying the Carlsen Field mill, which was abandoned by NFM.
Haryana has sweetened the deal by donating a container of rice, winning praise from Rowley.
T&T currently imports almost $100 million worth of rice each year from Guyana, India, Brazil, the United States and Thailand.
Guyana’s Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha said last week that the country is incrementally meeting its food security targets and earning revenues.
In recent years, Guyana developed nine high-yielding rice varieties which attract preferential international prices.
Collaboration with the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture has led a bio-fortified rice variety with improved nutritional value.
Guyana has also achieved greater production in several other food items, including vegetables, meat and shrimp.
That country’s President Dr. Irfaan Ali and Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley are the primary movers in the Caricom Food Plan, which is targeting several identified priority products.
The region buys an average of 60 per cent of what it eats, with some countries, like T&T, importing more than 85 per cent.
Caricom has said that several countries are meeting their production targets,
But in T&T, agriculture contributes just one per cent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and there is no evidence of improved yields and reduced imports.
Arable farming lands of the former Caroni (1975) Ltd., which was the size of Tobago, have not been put to widespread food production.
Over the past 21 years since Caroni’s closure, large plots have been sold to big business enterprises, which have opened franchise stores and warehouses.
Some lands have been sold to influential personalities, and there have been land-grabbing by squatters.
Seasonal floods affect the food baskets and there are challenges with agricultural access roads.
Agriculture contributes about 30 per cent to Guyana’s GDP.
This is expected to grow over the next few years with increased production, new farming techniques and partnerships with manufacturers of agrochemicals.
T&T, with the region’s highest annual food import bill, is selling the mill that produces rice, a staple meal item.
