Gov’t to establish agri section in every school

Against the backdrop of increasing food production, the government, through the ministries of agriculture and education, will soon establish an agriculture section in every school.

This was announced on Monday by Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha during remarks at the World Food Day exhibition and plant distribution exercise at the Georgetown Cricket Club.

Currently, Guyana is still heavily reliant on traditional crops but this policy shift will assist the government with the attainment of its general food security goals.

For the past three years, the minister said diversifying the sector has given birth to the Agriculture and Innovation Entrepreneurship Programme (AIEP), commonly known as the shade house initiative.

Minister Mustapha underscored that this is the brainchild of President, Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali aimed at giving youth the experience of growing high-value crops in shade houses.

“NAREI has already procured one hundred shade houses that we will move to different parts of the country to involve young people,” the minister underscored.

So far, there are over 200 young people managing the shade houses.

“We have seen a number of young people coming forward…people who are graduates from the Guyana School of Agriculture…graduates from the University of Guyana…the University of the West Indies are now coming forward. They are now involved in the programme and they are now delivering the programme,” Minister Mustapha said.

This is a significant increase since the launch of the AIEP initiative in January 2022 where President Ali announced the provision of resources and materials to develop 25 shade houses in the first phase of the programme for the production of high-value crops such as broccoli, sweet pepper, bell peppers and parsley.

This initiative is expected to benefit 2,210 Agri-entrepreneurs.

According to the minister, more details of the agriculture section in schools will be announced shortly.

Due to the increase in production of these high-valued crops, there is now a ready market available locally and regionally.