286% increase in peanut production, 106% increase in legumes in 2023

…Guyana well on its way to being major food exporter – Pres Ali

With the massive increases in the production of various other crops over the past year, President Dr Irfaan Ali has asserted that Guyana is well on its way to being a major food exporter and that the government will continue to make important, strategic investments in agriculture.
The Head of State was at the time addressing the 58th Independence Flag Raising Ceremony held in Region Ten (Upper Demerara-Berbice). According to him, these increases will also contribute to Guyana achieving food security domestically.

“We will continue to make these important investments. In agriculture and let me say this. In another two years, we want to ensure that we are the leader in agriculture. We are going to be a major food producer for export and we are going to have full sustainability here in Guyana,” President Ali said.
“What have we seen in 2023? We have seen that in legumes, we had an increase in production of 106 per cent. In peanuts, we increased production by 286 per cent. Coconut production, an increase of 55 per cent. Ground provision, vegetables, an increase of an average of 218 per cent. An increase in spice and seasoning of 53 per cent. And 16 per cent increase in fruit production.”
President Ali made it clear, however, that they are not satisfied with these numbers, stressing that the government aims to boost food production even more. This is why, according to the President, the government is now working on building a first-class regional food hub in Guyana and Region 10 will be critically connected.
There are a number of new crops that are at experimental stages, which Guyana intends to add to its crop production in the coming years. The undertaking of traditional and non-traditional crops is all part of efforts geared towards Guyana and the Caribbean region achieving food security by the year 2025.
For instance, it was announced last month that there had been promising results from onion-cultivation trials and that Guyana is poised to fulfil local onion demand by expanding production at the National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (NAREI) at Mon Repos, East Coast Demerara.
The government has already developed 10 acres of land for another trial in onion production, following the success of the first crop. The onion project spans 2.6 acres of land and land space for the project continues to increase. The Brazilian variety of onions, which was imported to reduce the country’s dependence on imports, demonstrated a harvest of about 9.5 tonnes per acre across the 12 beds.
During budget 2024, Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh had announced that Government plans to pump $97.6B into agriculture in 2024. This is on the back of a strong performance in agriculture last year.
The sector recorded a growth of seven percent after the sum of $60.4 billion was spent therein for its stimulation and invigoration. The performance is attributed to increases across all sub-sectors; namely, other crops, rice-growing, livestock, fishing, sugar-growing, and forestry.
In delivering his budget presentation, the finance minister noted that huge investments would be made in the subsectors of sugar, rice, other crops, corn and soya, coconut, citrus, and spices; as well as agro-processing, livestock, fisheries and aquaculture.
For 2023, the sugar industry grew by 28 per cent while it declined by 11.8 per cent in 2019. Rice expanded in 2023 by seven per cent while there was a mere one per cent increase in 2019. The other crops sector grew by 4.1 per cent in 2023, while there was a meagre growth of 0.3 per cent in 2019.
The livestock industry increased by 12.7 per cent in 2023 while 2019 recorded a decline of 3.5 per cent. In 2023, Guyana’s fishing industry increased by 37.8 per cent and 25 per cent in the aquaculture sector. (G3)