Guyana to boost regional collaboration with visits from Barbados, Suriname Agriculture Ministers

Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha on Wednesday announced that the Agriculture Ministers of Barbados and Suriname are expected to visit Guyana in the upcoming week with the aim of strengthening collaborations among the nations.
According to Mustapha, Barbados’s Minister of Agriculture, Food, and Nutritional Security, Dr Shantal Munro-Knight, will visit from March 23 to 26, while Suriname’s Minister of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, and Fisheries, Mike Noersalim, will arrive soon after.
The main objective of the visit is for the regional officials to experience Guyana’s agricultural advancements and to explore various agricultural projects.
“These two Ministers will be here next week to see what we are doing and, at the same time, have also requested that we visit some other countries, like Grenada and so on. They want us to help them to talk to some people there to whip up the interest we have here in Guyana,” Mustapha stated at the launch of the IDB-funded Sustainable Agricultural Development Programme (SADP) Project Completion Exit Workshop at the World Trade Centre in Georgetown on Wednesday.

Over the years, Guyana has established strong working relationships with both countries, which has seen good results in the areas of shade houses, brackish water shrimp production, and coconut cultivation.
Meanwhile, the workshop was planned to assess the Sustainable Agricultural Development Programme (SADP) project results in alignment with its development objectives, identify key successes, innovations, challenges, and sustainability considerations that emerged during implementation, and distil lessons learned to inform the design and execution of future projects.
While addressing participants, Minister Mustapha said that the programme represents a key partnership between the Government of Guyana and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), working together for the benefit of the people.
He also noted that the SADP clearly achieved its objectives of assisting farmers in enhancing productivity and improving their livelihoods while also strengthening Guyana’s agricultural institutions and modernising the systems that guide the sector.

IDB Country Representative Lorena Solórzano-Salazar said the project was fully aligned with the government’s vision for the agriculture sector and was one of the most successful the Bank has funded in the country.
Several technical officers from agencies such as the National Agricultural Research and Extension institute, the Guyana Livestock Development Authority, Hope Estate, the Fisheries Department, the Guyana Food Safety Authority, and other agencies under the Ministry’s umbrella participated in the workshop.
In March 2023, the Ministry of Agriculture received equipment valued at $150 million through the SADP to strengthen the Ministry’s extension services to small- and medium-scale farmers in Regions Two to Six and Ten.
Similarly, in August of that year, thirty small- and medium-scale farmers from Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) received inputs worth $3.3 million through the project.
Under Component Two of the project’s funding were also allocated to strengthen the Ministry’s extension system, including the training of both staff and farmers, as well as the establishment of research and demonstration plots.