Santa Fé: A blossoming offshoot of the Jagdeo Initiative

In a little known Region Nine area, nestles Santa Fé, which in English translates to Holy Faith. It is an area that will surely amaze persons who see it for the first time. In this remote interior savannah, Santa Fé is blossoming, bringing forth, fruits, vegetables, ground provisions and more importantly, rice. Santa Fé is a mega farm project undertaken by the Simpson Group of Companies of Barbados, and in June, it is expecting a bumper rice crop. Thus far, 120 acres of rice is being cultivated.

The project, being managed by Guyanese Richard Vasconcellos, is rapidly moving apace.
Vasconcellos told Guyana Times International that Santa Fé, which is part of the Simpson Group of Companies, became a reality in Guyana as a direct result of the Jagdeo Initiative, following calls for more investment in the agriculture sector in the region.
He said the decision was also influenced by Guyana’s availability of land and water, its established system of democracy, stable currency and openness for business.
The Simpson Group of Companies is the Caribbean’s largest independent distributor of automobiles and the region’s largest independent oil company.
Recently, Agriculture Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy, junior Agriculture Minister Alli Baksh and a team from the ministry journeyed to Region Nine where they visited and interacted with the Blue Wave investors and staff at the mega farm.
Employment
Minister Ramsammy said he heard a lot of people saying that the Jagdeo Initiative is a waste of time, however, at Santa Fé there are rice, fruits, vegetables and ground provision being produced and pump stations and other facilities being constructed to accommodate other services.
Importantly, the venture is being undertaken through a combination of local and international expertise. Of the 60 employees on the site, 57 are Guyanese from Region Nine and the remainder are Brazilian consultants.
Jagdeo initiative
“The Jagdeo Initiative was intended for food security and nutrition security in the Caribbean… Santa Fé is one of the first examples of Caribbean people responding to (former) President Jagdeo’s call to invest in agriculture in our country,” Minister Ramsammy said.
He thanked the Simpson family from Barbados for responding to Guyana’s call.
Discussions and the strategy established for this project commenced in 2010 with former President Bharrat Jagdeo. “This is another example not only of the Jagdeo Initiative working, but the amount of food that will be produced at Santa Fé will be beyond anything that Region Nine can consume, and therefore Santa Fé is meeting another objective of the Jagdeo Initiative which is that Guyana becomes firmly established as the food basket of the Caribbean,” Minister Ramsammy emphasised.
Further, in meeting that obligation, it shows that every part of Guyana can play a role, and in so doing, they would be adding to the country’s portfolio as an export nation.
1000 acres
Along with the cultivated areas, Santa Fé has almost completed the establishment of a state-of-the-art rice factory coupled with huge silos which will be used to store the paddy harvested from these large fields.

The project will be expanding the current cultivation by an additional 980 acres by June month-end.
This will give a total of 1000 acres of upland rice being cultivated with the zero tillage technology/ method. This achievement will mean that rice would no-longer have to be transported to Lethem from Georgetown or Brazil.
“What I am seeing here in Santa Fé is an impressive operation and it is multipurpose,” Minister Baksh posited.
He noted that the project is intended to be extended and will see not only the cultivation of rice, but will include soya beans, rearing of cattle, sheep, aquaculture and pigs in the future.
“This is a vast investment, and, we from the Ministry of Agriculture are very satisfied so far. Looking at this project at its initial stage a lot of investment has already been done,” the minister acknowledged.
He added that within the one-year period, a lot has been done and the investors must be commended for taking on such a herculean task.
Technology
Minister Ramsammy highlighted the need for Guyanese to be trained in new and innovative technology; in this regard, the Santa Fé venture stands as a good example of where Guyana wants to be in terms of expanding agriculture. He reiterated that President Donald Ramotar and former President Jagdeo have both endorsed that Guyana must not be shy to bring in technology and the people who can introduce the technology.
“Brazil is one of the global economic giants, it has developed its own technology, its own plant varieties and Guyana has looked to Europe and North America often. We should not stop looking there, but at the same time we shouldn’t be looking one way… we should be looking next door to our neighbour which has been successful and has become one of the top 20 economies in the world,” Minister Ramsammy stressed.
The Santa Fé Project which is taking an integrated mega farm approach is expected to utilise savannah land for soya beans, as well as corn cultivation which will be mainly used for animal feed production locally and regionally. This will help the Caribbean reduce its total import of these essential foods from North America and other regions and allow for trading and expanded markets within the region.
It is also embarking on the cultivation of cassava, watermelon, passion fruit and other cash crops as well as some other perennials, and would be seeking to include livestock such as cattle, sheep, goats and poultry on the mega farm.