Agri officers will have to listen to farmers before implementing projects

Officers employed with the Agriculture Ministry will have to listen to farmers before implementing projects. That is according to Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha.
He made the announcement on Saturday when he met with farmers in Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice). The Minister took the opportunity to call on farmers to increase production even as farmers are complaining of cattle rustling.

Region Five is the country’s largest rice-producing region and is second in cattle production.
However, it was on January 12, 2017, that an Agriculture Minister last made an official visit to that region. As such there are many issues affection farmers and the sector.
The Minister visited with a team which included officials from the Mahaica Mahaicony Abary-Agricultural Development Authority; the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority, the Guyana Rice Development Board, Guyana Livestock Development Authority and the fisheries sector.
Meetings were held with farmers at Foulis, Seafield, Kingelly, Bush Lot, Bath Settlement, Cotton Tree and Blairmont.
Addressing concerns at Foulis where farmers complained of poor drainage and irrigation, cattle rustling and called for the reintroduction of manual labour to clear canals, Mustapha said the Ministry will now adopt a new way approach in which farmers will be a part of the decision making.
“There will be task force which will be headed by Lionel Wordsworth and the CEO for NDIA Fredrick Flatts and the other people from the MMA, they will make up that task force. I want the farmers to have some representative to liaison with this committee because I don’t want our officers to decide where the machine should go, they should have consultation with the farmers so that the farmers can help them to identify these critical areas. Gone are the days when we have people imposing things on you. Farmers will have to play an important part as long as I am Minister of Agriculture, the farmers will have a better say; they are the stakeholders, they are the beneficiaries and they will play an important part in helping us to make decisions for the agriculture sector.”
Farmers also expressed concerns over increases in land taxes imposed by the MMA where in some cases, fees were increased by as much as 1500 per cent.
That issue, the Minister said, will be addressed as it was a promise by the PPP to have the increase reversed. However, farmers questioned whether the reversal will be retroactive.
“Over the last few years, I know for a fact that many farmers were unable to pay their rent because the rent was not doubled but gone up by 2000 per cent. We are committed by all of the promises that we made in our manifesto and we will reverse the land rental in the MMA/ADA Scheme.”
VAT on agriculture machinery and pesticides, Mustapha said, will also be removed so that farmers can acquire them at cheaper costs.
He said his Ministry is currently looking at expanding existing markets for farmers and also exploring new markets.
Meanwhile, at Seafield, the Minister encouraged farmers to start paying their rentals to the MMA when the increases are reversed while at Bush Lot, the Minister said that Government will be presenting a four-month budget and as such, no capital projects will be implemented this year.
He promised the farmers who gathered at Bath that their farms which were taken away by the RDC for the development of a model farm will be returned to them.
The farm was a project undertaken by the former REO Ovid Morrison without the approval of the RDC. There are no known benefits for the region from the project which is utilising the land which was leased to more than fifty farmers.
In noting the importance of farming to Guyana’s development, Mustapha told farmers at Cotton Tree that there is need to improve on agriculture production and promised that extension officers will be visiting farmers to assist them to improve production.
The Minister also addressed issues surrounding sugar when he met with farmers at Blairmont where he also addressed the issue of blocked canals and promised to have extension officers intervene to assist poultry farmers who were experiencing problems with the growth of meat birds. (Andrew Carmichael)