Barbados, Trinidad increase interest in fresh produce from Guyana

Agriculture Minister reiterates gov’t will continue to find markets for farmers

BARBADOS and Trinidad have increased their interest in having fresh produce from Guyana supplied to their markets.

This was according to Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha, during an outreach to Ann’s Grove, East Coast Demerara, on Tuesday.

The minister said this in response to concerns raised by farmers and residents, who are recording excess produce due to the lack of markets.

Residents said that they made their way to the New Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC) for assistance but were unsuccessful in receiving any feedback.

Minister Mustapha said that the GMC has an obligation to help farmers get markets for their produce, and had even reported to him that it had been finding markets for farmers.

However, according to the minister, if it was a case of those officers not providing feedback to farmers, his ministry will seek to rectify that issue.

Mustapha went on to say: “A number of Caribbean countries especially Barbados, they are looking now, they want fresh produce from Guyana to go across there, so there are already markets in the Caribbean for farmers’ produce.”

He related that they are working now and meeting with these countries to remove all non-tariff barriers which caused produce from Guyana to not go into the market.

Against this backdrop, he said that, recently, Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister who was in the country for the oil and gas conference had said that they too were very eager to have Guyanese produce go to Trinidad and Tobago.

“Trinidad and Tobago was the hardest country for us to export our produce; they had all kinds of laws there, all kinds of barriers; now they are working to remove those barriers,” he told the farmers.

Additionally, the Agriculture Minister said that they have also been working very closely with the authorities in Barbados along with Antigua and Barbuda.

He said: “So we have to work with the farmers… there are enough markets out there for our farmers’ produce to go there and we will work with you to find the markets.”