$37M investment to boost GMC’s agro-processing capacity

A $37M investment has been pumped into Guyana’s agro-processing capacity in the New Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC). It was noted that this will now allow Guyana to better export fresh produce regionally, to countries such as Barbados and St. Lucia among others.

It was revealed that the investment saw the commissioning of six water tanks, two forklifts, four pallet jacks, five trolleys and one sewing machine at the GMC’s Sophia location. Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha, said the investment shows government’s commitment to improve agro-processing. He pointed out that Guyana’s agricultural sector is taking the region by storm as government is doing all that is necessary to ensure food security.

Mustapha said that the GMC, has an important role to play in Guyana achieving food security by ensuring farmers produce is developed to value added products for export. This, he said is one of the reasons that government, since taking office, has invested heavily through budgetary allocations to boost the agriculture sector.

“We recognise the agriculture sector as one of the most important sectors to our country’s economy, to our country’s future because without food security, you can have all the funds, and all the money in the world, but without food we have seen the problem that countries experience in the pandemic. Many countries had money, but they did not have the food to purchase. We are very fortunate that we are producing most of the food that we are consuming, and we want to move further afield to ensure that what we have now, we consolidate, we expand and we go into new production,” the minister said.

He continued, “the plan in the agriculture sector is to develop the agro-processing system to move it further afield, to have more farmers in the country involved in agro-processing, so that they could have more money for their crops and their produce. That is why we are building these facilities right across the country.”

The agriculture minister explained that Black Bush Polder in Region Six; Linden, Region 10; St. Ignatius and Deep South in Region Nine; Mabaruma in Region One; Parika in Region Three, and Charity and Anna Regina in Region Two are areas where such facilities are being established.

Minister Mustapha said that President, Irfaan Ali wants Guyana to move away from only primary forms of production. Employees of the New GMC were urged by the minister to play their role to prepare farmers and agro-processors so that they could produce the product that people would demand in the near future.

He added that Guyana has been leading the way in CARICOM’s vision of reducing its food import bill by 25% by 2025.