Guyana targets 3-month food storage capacity for C’bean

The Government of Guyana is making significant investments in expanding the country’s food storage capacity, with the aim of establishing a three-month reserve to help safeguard regional food supplies and maintain stable prices during global market disruptions.

The announcement was made by President Dr Irfaan Ali on Monday during his keynote address at a Farmers’ Conference at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC).

According to the Guyanese leader, food security demands the same level of strategic planning and foresight as the oil sector.

“Just like oil, if you have a massive storage facility for oil and you buy when oil is cheap and you can store that oil, you have a longer security period in terms of stability in your market. It’s becoming the same for food because of climate-related events. The longer storage we have for chicken, when chicken price is stable, we load up our storage so when prices go up because of something that is happening globally, a disease or something, we have a buffer, a three-month buffer of food supply to stabilise the market,” he explained.

President Ali said that the goal is to make Guyana the food storage hub for the Caribbean, noting that “that is where we are heading, and that is why we are working on an integrated plan with Northern Brazil and the Caribbean as key partners in this integrated plan.”

He pointed to local investments in rice and honey storage facilities as well as the regional food hub for vegetables. Additionally, he said the private sector is increasing investments in storage capacity for poultry.

“These facilities are going to become critical for food security for the Caribbean. Just imagine if we can have the facility in the country to hold three months of food supply for the Caribbean,” the President remarked.

Amid these plans, the Head of State stressed the need for increased local production. He posited that while there have been significant increases over the last five years, production has not yet matched demand.

Pointing to increases in rice by some 18 per cent, coconut by over 200 per cent, fruit by 10 per cent, vegetables by 21 per cent and poultry by 110 per cent, President Ali commented, “We are not matching the demand.”

“There is an increase in the consumers in Guyana, the migrants who are coming, and the workers who are coming, so while we’ve increased production, we are not matching the demand, so the only way we can match demand is to continue to increase production but also increase productivity and yield,” he emphasised.

President Ali further highlighted that increasing production will also tremendously support efforts to build out a vibrant agro-processing sector.

Using celery as an example, he explained that increasing local production could lower prices while boosting the manufacturing of the highly sought-after green seasoning.

“What we need to do is to ramp up production, but whilst we ramp up production, have a stable price that the farmers enjoy and then lead that product into agro-processing, so we have the off-taker who has a long-term off-take agreement at ‘x’ price, the farmers agree with long-term prices, so they have safeguards from mark susceptibility, and then that goes as input in agro-processing into the green seasoning that is taking the Caribbean market by storm,” the President outlined, noting that more locally manufactured agri-products are now available regionally.

President Ali also stressed the need for increased production to match the investments being made by the Government, calling on the Ministry of Agriculture to map out specific plans with farmers.

“One of the things that we have to work on today is how we increase our productivity, because the investment in infrastructure must match increases in productivity,” he emphasised.

“So, if we put a farm-to-market access road and we’re spending $300 million on that road, we must have a productivity plan along that road, how much land we’re opening, what are we going to use the land for, how many farmers are along that road, and how the farmers are going to increase the production, so every farm, every single farm, we should have a report, or a plan, a productivity plan, so when we make these investments, the Ministry of Agriculture must sit with all of the farmers along those roads, along the new drainage canals that we’re building, and sit down with them and see how we’re going to come up with that productivity plan and link the production to market,” he added.