Pres­i­dent Ir­faan Ali an­nounced Sat­ur­day that some 20,000 acres of new farm­land on the Es­se­qui­bo coast, Re­gion Two will be­come avail­able for small-scale farm­ers to ad­dress the long-stand­ing is­sue of high rental costs.

Ac­cord­ing to the head of state, a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of small-scale farm­ers, es­pe­cial­ly those cul­ti­vat­ing 30 acres or less, are rent­ing land, of­ten from ab­sen­tee landown­ers or larg­er farm­ers. This was high­light­ed as one of the most press­ing is­sues for farm­ers on the Es­se­qui­bo coast.

To ad­dress this, “we are go­ing to in­vest, in the com­ing months, to open up at least 20,000 acres of land in three dif­fer­ent clus­ters here in Es­se­qui­bo,” Ali said dur­ing an en­gage­ment with farm­ers and fish­er­folk.

Be­yond just ac­cess, the pres­i­dent said plans are afoot to al­so in­vest in cap­i­tal de­vel­op­ment for these lands, in­clud­ing pro­vid­ing seed pad­dy, build­ing drainage and ir­ri­ga­tion in­fra­struc­ture, and en­sur­ing that the land is farm-ready.

The re­gion will be or­gan­ised in­to three agri­cul­tur­al clus­ters, with each clus­ter be­ing equipped with es­sen­tial ma­chin­ery, such as back­hoes, trac­tors with ploughs, and com­bines.

“And, you [will] man­age those re­sources [and] you can charge each oth­er, among your­selves, for the main­te­nance of the equip­ment,” the pres­i­dent said.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, to boost in­come and add val­ue to ex­ist­ing rice cul­ti­va­tion, Pres­i­dent Ali said re­sources will be pro­vid­ed to de­vel­op one acre out of every ten for high-val­ue, high-yield crops.

With un­pre­dictable weath­er pat­terns mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for farm­ers to dry their pro­duce, the pres­i­dent an­nounced that two mod­ern dry­ing and stor­age fa­cil­i­ties will be con­struct­ed in the re­gion. En­gi­neers are ex­pect­ed to com­plete the de­signs with­in two weeks.

In the fish­ing in­dus­try, plans are on the cards to di­ver­si­fy in­come for fish­ers and their fam­i­lies, by pro­mot­ing swamp shrimp and prawns farm­ing as part of a large aqua­cul­ture ini­tia­tive.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the back dam ac­cess roads will be con­vert­ed in­to durable, hard-sur­faced routes us­ing crush-run ma­te­ri­als. These roads are vi­tal for im­prov­ing ac­cess to farms, trans­port­ing pro­duce, and re­duc­ing spoilage and op­er­at­ing costs.

These in­vest­ments, he not­ed, are part of the gov­ern­ment’s vi­sion to trans­form Re­gion Two in­to a hub for both food pro­duc­tion and tourism, with agri­tourism as a cen­tral theme.

The pres­i­dent not­ed, “the gov­ern­ment will put three coal stor­age fa­cil­i­ties to sup­port our cash crop farm­ers and to sup­port our fish­er folk here in the re­gion.”

In­vest­ments in three cold stor­age fa­cil­i­ties will help sta­bilise prices, sup­port per­ish­able crop farm­ers and fish­er­folk, and cre­ate new agribusi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties.

Fur­ther­more, to im­prove ac­cess to agri­cul­tur­al sup­port, a new con­trol cen­tre in George­town is be­ing es­tab­lished to col­lect and analyse da­ta, track weath­er and pests, and pro­vide time­ly, proac­tive ad­vice to farm­ers not just in Guyana, but across the Caribbean.

In the next two years, the pres­i­dent said, Guyana will op­er­a­tionalise its own fer­tilis­er plant, re­duc­ing its de­pen­den­cy on un­pre­dictable glob­al mar­kets. It will al­so low­er fer­tilis­er costs and en­able the pro­duc­tion of blends to suit re­gion­al soil types.

The pres­i­dent em­pha­sised a col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach to agri­cul­tur­al de­vel­op­ment, mak­ing it clear that the gov­ern­ment in­tends to craft poli­cies and mea­sures that are deeply in­formed by the lived ex­pe­ri­ences of farm­ers.

GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana, June 1, CMC –

CMC/ed/2025