President Irfaan Ali has announced plans to boost Agriculture among young people in Region Five as part of his Government’s Youth in Agriculture programme, while announcing the construction of a business and innovation centre for the region.
Addressing scores of young people in the Region this morning, the President noted that there are a number of opportunities in the agriculture sector for young people to benefit from, and he also pledged Government’s support.
He explained that the Government has already set the foundation by ensuring the relevant infrastructure is in place and will be working with the banks to ensure that financing is provided for the various projects to be undertaken in Region Five.
He implored the young people to seek out a more joint venture business model since it will be it easier for them.
“And that is why we want concentration of infrastructure—if you have 50 farms in the back dam and you have 50 farmers, it will be 50 persons with 50 tractors going to 50 different plots of land. When we develop these high-performance innovation centres of 5 or ten acres, is all of you going together at one area so the overheads become easier to manage,” the President said.
Meanwhile, Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha explained that the Government has established a company with young people at its helm to ensure more participation of young people in the sector. So far, he explained more than 1,000 people have taken up the opportunities.
“Today in Agriculture we have exciting opportunities not only for farmers but also for young people, you can make your living out of this and this is very important, for the first time Guyana is producing its ow hatching eggs—last year we produced 27,000 for the first half of this year we produced 94,000 and the President gave us a target that within the next couple years we must produce all the hatching eggs for Guyana,” Mustapha said.
Chief Executive Officer of the Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry Shawn Gurcharran said that the he bank is impressed with the increased push in the agriculture sector and will be offering competitive interest rates as low as 3.5% for certain businesses in the sector.
“GBTI is focusing on the none oil economy, we want to play a big part in oil but then the other sector as well. We are a local bank so we understand the value that Agriculture brings and Agriculture is not be viewed in a negative light anymore but food production and food security is important,” the Bank CEO said.
President Ali has been leading an aggressive push for more development in the Agriculture sector, especially involving young people.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login