Guyana to tap into Indian expertise to boost agri production – VP Jagdeo

– looking to introduce new farming techniques, technology

As part of its efforts to be a regional leader in food security, the Guyana Government is turning to the vast expertise and research of India in order to boost the local agriculture sector and expand its production.
This is according to Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo during a recent press conference on Friday. Jagdeo recently returned from a one-week visit to New Delhi, where he met with several Ministers of the Indian Government including Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Shri Narendra Singh Tomar.
Updating the media on their discussions, the Vice President noted that they were centred on getting higher levels of productivity in the agricultural sector and moving from peasant-type farming into agri-business.
“We need the expertise from many parts of the world to transform these industries into agri-business and with high levels of productivity… India is a powerhouse in agricultural research and development. They practically feed 1.4 billion people themselves with very little import and with high levels of productivity,” he posited.
According to Jagdeo, Guyana is hoping to recruit some of these specialists over the coming months and bring them here to start work. He explained that experts from countries such as India, and others in that region, are more affordable than from the Western nations, thus making them an ideal option since Government would be paying for these services.

The Vice President added too that these are high-quality specialists, who have done the type of work before that Guyana is looking to do, including the possibility of setting up biogas and biofuel facilities
“So, they’ll come in and they walk straight into the field and they’ll walk into the research body and they start to do work. We don’t want the report-writing consultants to come here. We want people who’ve actually gone and established a bio-diesel facility… who can come here and say ‘here are the things you now need to do to establish a biofuel facility or an ethanol facility,” he stated.

New farming techniques
Additionally, VP Jagdeo noted that a lot of time was also spent discussing practical approaches to improving the local agricultural sector. This includes the introduction of new farming techniques and technology – something which India has a lot of.
He noted that they talked about exploring the use of nano-fertiliser technology.
A nano fertiliser is a product that delivers nutrients to crops in one of three ways. The nutrient can be encapsulated inside nanomaterials such as nanotubes or nano porous materials, coated with a thin protective polymer film, or delivered as particles or emulsions of nanoscale dimensions.
“So, we explore the use of nano-fertiliser. We’re told that two pounds of nano-fertiliser can be as effective as say about four to five pounds of regular urea…,” the VP related.
Another farming technique being looked at is tissue culture (TC), which is the cultivation of plant cells, tissues, or organs on specially formulated nutrient media. Under the right conditions, an entire plant can be regenerated from a single cell. Plant tissue culture is a technique that has been around for more than 30 years.
The Vice President said Guyana will be working with India to expand the tissue culture facility here.
“When we look at our nurseries now, they are endemic. They can’t supply the planting material that we need at scale and the quality through the current method. And so, with tissue culture, you can do millions of plants in a short period of time but everyone has the same consistency and productivity as the other one because of tissue culture. So, we’re going to be working with India to bring in these facilities here. It would be a huge opportunity for Guyanese to work in these areas,” he indicated.
This technique, according to Jagdeo, will be a big boost to major agri-sectors in Guyana such as the rice and sugar cane sectors.
“In India, the variety of cane would give you probably two to three times the output that we’re getting from a single acre of cane here… We need planting material now of high quality. We can get a million [cane] plants in a short period of time and also everything else. Almost any tree that’s grown, you can culture it through tissue culture in the lab and then produce plants of high quality. We’re looking at that in aquaculture, in the spices, in livestock development [and] coconut growing,” the VP stated.
To this end, Jagdeo further disclosed that the Guyana Government is also considering putting large swathes of State land along the banks of rivers, especially areas that are prone to flooding, under coconut cultivation. However, he noted that this requires better quality planting material.