GUYANA: Agri-Investment Forum – Letter to Editor – By Eusi Kwayana

Dear Editor: — Letter By Eusi Kwayana – Submitted on May 19, 2022

Oily, newly rich Guyana has become a center of assembly for various bodies of state and private officials who wish to justify their activities in economic projects with popular appeal of wealth creation; even though some of them will aggravate the climate crisis in a region already highly vulnerable to climatic crisis.

Some months ago, there was the energy symposium at which the voices of perceptive Guyanese critics were repressed. Yesterday the Agri-Investment Forum opened in our capital city.

Unlike the menace posed by oil exploration and its hazards, agriculture is without a doubt population friendly.  If well planned with popular participation, it can be one of the most beneficial of economic activities.           

GUYANA: Outcome Statement of the Agri-Investment Forum and Expo — May 19 to 21, 2022

DPI Guyana – 21 May 2022

Caricom Headquarters
Georgetown. Guyana.

A representative group of CARICOM Heads of Government from Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Guyana, Montserrat and Trinidad and Tobago and other high-level representatives from The Bahamas, Grenada, Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and regional and international institutions met in Georgetown, Guyana at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre on May 19 and 20, 2022 as participants in the “Agri-Investment Forum and Expo: Investing in Vision 25 by 2025”, organised by the Government of Guyana in collaboration with the CARICOM Secretariat.

The Group took the opportunity of the important and timely Forum to discuss the current grave global situation of the shortages and high prices of imported food; the shortage and increased prices of fertilizers and other agricultural inputs; and the severe problems affecting transportation and supply.       

GUYANA: Cash grant for hinterland communities; free fertiliser for farmers; home-ownership assistance

President Infaan Ali

Demerara Waves: By Denis Chabrol– Monday, 16 May 2022 

President Irfaan Ali on Monday May 16, 2022 announced that there would be a special one-off cash grant of G$25,000 to households in riverain and hinterland communities as well as the purchase of GY$1 billion in fertiliser for free distribution to farmers.

The cost of the one-off cash-grant would amount GY$800 million because they have been “particularly affected by the cost of living,” he said.   

Guyanese Diaspora Digest Publications -13th Edition 2022

Download: Guyanese-Diaspora-Digest-13th-Edition

GUYANA: Oil, Water, and Climate Change in the Guyana-Suriname Basin – By Ivelaw Lloyd Griffith

Ivelaw Lloyd Griffith  |  May 11, 2022 – https://theglobalamericans.org

Image: Waves batter a section of Guyana’s “Sea Wall” during a high-spring tide in 2019. Source: Loop News.

“Oil don’t ‘spoil!” So once declared Eric Williams, one-time long-standing Prime Minister of oil-rich Trinidad and Tobago. This assertion is undoubtedly true. But the distinguished scholar-statesman did not contemplate a circumstance where a dangerous mix of oil and water in the context of climate change dangers could spoil lives and livelihoods within the societies blessed with oil and gas resources.

Such is the situation with the two nations in the Guyana-Suriname Basin (GSB). Technically, the GSB includes the coastal plains of French Guiana, Suriname, Guyana, and eastern Venezuela.[1] However, the focus here is on Guyana and Suriname, the Caribbean’s emerging petro-powers.         

CARIBBEAN | The destabilising impact of a distant conflict – By David Jessop

— David Jessop – May 1, 2022

Earlier this month at a conference on Caribbean security, Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Motley spoke about the consequences of the war in Ukraine and the now unavoidable impact it will have on the cost of food, energy, fertiliser and transport.

The region’s leaders, she said, must explain to their citizens the need to prepare for what may lie ahead. Warning that over time a “culture of contentment” had beset the Caribbean people, PM Mottley said the region’s citizens must now be “better prepared for the present” and that the countries of the Caribbean must brace for the impact the conflict will have on prices and access to commodities.

Behind her carefully chosen words is the awareness that a seemingly distant war may have a socially destabilising dimension.         

GUYANA: Guyanese women nervy over high cost of living – IRI Poll

Apr 22, 2022 – Kaieteur News   

Inflation – Rising Prices

Stemming from the global pandemic and more recently, the Russia/Ukraine war, the cost of living has had a huge impact on local citizens, so much so that union leaders and other concerned society members have been urging the administration to do more in cushioning the effects of this fall out.

Supporting the view that citizens have been hard hit by these constraints is the recently concluded International Republican Institute (IRI) survey which reported that women and rural communities are amongst those most concerned about the effects of the ongoing issue. The cost of living and the country’s economic situation, the report said, was the biggest concern when citizens were asked about the important problems facing the country.

The report said that of the 1500 survey participants, 26 percent of them generally saw the cost of living as a serious problem.          

GUYANA: GUYSUCO to reduce sugar production; focus will be on shrimp, hemp- Jagdeo

Demerara Waves: by Denis Chabrol – Monday, 11 April 2022, 15:58 5 Comments

Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo on Monday announced that the State-owned Guyana Sugar Corporation (GUYSUCO) would reduce sugar production in Skeldon, Corentyne but would facilitate private cane farming and assign some of the estate lands to shrimp and hemp production.

Addressing residents at Line Path, Skeldon, Corentyne, he said 400 of the 1,700 retrenched persons at Skeldon Estate have been rehired temporarily . “We have had a very, very hard time reopening here and generating jobs,” he said.

In outlining plans for the ailing industry, Mr. Jagdeo said sugar production would be scaled back. “We are going to return to some sugar production but on a smaller scale,”  he said.           

GUYANA: Guyanese in Suriname updated on massive economic opportunities

Map of Suriname – click to enlarge

April 10 2022 – BPI Guyana

─ during meeting with Agriculture Minister, Foreign Secretary

Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha and Foreign Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Robert Persaud met Saturday with Guyanese living in Dutch-speaking Republic of Suriname.

With some 25,000 Guyanese living in the neighboring South American nation since the 1970’s who work in the agriculture, fishing, construction and even the oil and gas sectors, Foreign Secretary Persaud said the intention of the outreach was to update the diaspora of the countless opportunities that exist in Guyana.       

GUYANA: Agriculture: 20 wheat varieties to be tested locally – Minister Mustapha

Wheat field

Dep. of Public Information (DPI) – Kellon Rover – April 7, 2022

Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha, M.P, said Government will commence the first trial of 20 wheat varieties before the end of May, as an effort to further diversify Guyana’s food sector.

Cultivation for the initial trial phase is expected to begin at the Burma Rice Research Station, Region Five and the project will be led by scientist, Dr. Mahendra Persaud.

President Irfaan Ali recently announced government’s plan to explore the possibility of sourcing a variety of wheat for local production. The Head of State said the government is unwavering in its quest to build a Guyana that is resilient, and meets not only its national responsibility, but plays an important role in its global responsibility.