TT seeking Guyana’s advice in agriculture – Rice production and aquaculture named specifically

Minister of State in the Trinidad and Tobago Food Production Ministry Jairam Seemungal during his visit to Guyana last week, said his ministry is looking at signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the government of Guyana to initiate a partnership on rice cultivation.

Seemungal said the MOU will be a knowledge-seeking one between the two countries. He reiterated Trinidad is interested in seeking knowledge in the production of rice and the rearing of fish. During his visit to Guyana, he met with Agriculture Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy and discussion was held on the concept of the MoU. He said Trinidad wants technical advice from Guyana to increase rice production.
“We in Trinidad want to learn from Guyana, we want to plant rice like Guyanese, over the years the bags of paddy per acreage in Guyana have increased significantly; this we want to learn, we want to plant rice in Trinidad on a large scale,” Seemungal noted.
He said Trinidad has lots of lands and natural resources, but there has been a decline in the production of rice since the Caroni Rice factory closed down. He said the closure of the factory has severely affected the rice industry.
“When Caroni closed down, the production of rice moved from 30,000 to 20,000 within seven years; this is a great loss for our country.”
He noted that many lands in Trinidad have been abandoned and the government is looking at opening new lands in an effort to put them under rice cultivation. He said once the MoU is signed with Guyana, 10,000 acres of virgin lands will be used up as experimental plots for rice cultivation.
The TT minister said that his country is interested in acquiring new varieties of G9-12 certified seeds from Guyana and technical advice will be sought from officials here. He said after he studied the rice industry in the Caribbean, he noticed that Guyana has the most thriving and blooming rice industry, and as such, he is seeking help from the government under the Agriculture Ministry to have officers and engineers from Trinidad come to Guyana to study and learn some of the planting techniques.
He said the cultivation of rice will ensure food security in his country, noting that after the rice is polished, the by-product will be used as poultry feed. Seemungal said as it is, there is an unstable feed price; however, with the move, it will stabilise the price for livestock feed. Seemungal during his visit to Guyana also interacted with farmers and rice millers.