RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Calls are be­ing made for the Gov­ern­ment to part­ner with lo­cal en­tre­pre­neurs as this coun­try looks to part­ner with Guyana to pro­duce corn, soy­bean and poul­try.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, the for­mer pres­i­dent of the Rice Farm­ers As­so­ci­a­tion David Pa­ponette said in 2017, at­tempts were made to es­tab­lish a dry corn and soy­bean ini­tia­tive in Guyana which would have fa­cil­i­tat­ed the pro­duc­tion of prod­ucts by Na­tion­al Flour Mills.

How­ev­er, Pa­ponette says de­spite hav­ing a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MoU) with the Guyanese gov­ern­ment, the project failed be­cause of a lack of sup­port.

Pa­ponette said they could not se­cure a loan from the Agri­cul­ture De­vel­op­ment Bank (ADB) and the 500 acres of land al­lo­cat­ed to the project were nev­er utilised.

With Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley com­mit­ting to ex­pand­ing corn and soy­bean pro­duc­tion, Pa­ponette said T&T's grain farm­ers who are in­ter­est­ed in Guyana could be con­sult­ed. 

Pa­ponette called on the new Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein to part­ner with lo­cal farm­ers to make the project a suc­cess.

Pa­ponette al­so said the ease of do­ing busi­ness in Guyana was bet­ter than in T&T.

"Once you go in there and you are pro­gres­sive and open to in­vest­ment, they find ways to fa­cil­i­tate you. Guyana of­fers an op­tion that doesn’t ex­ist in Trinidad, which is the pos­si­bil­i­ty of one farmer do­ing 5,000 acres or one large com­pa­ny do­ing 100,000 acres of corn and soy­bean," he said.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein said dis­cus­sions re­lat­ed to Guyana are at the lev­el of Cari­com. He said a fol­low-up meet­ing will be held in Au­gust fol­low­ing which oth­er de­tails will be fleshed out.

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