{"id":28210,"date":"2026-01-29T20:14:39","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T00:14:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/?p=28210"},"modified":"2026-01-29T20:14:39","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T00:14:39","slug":"govt-invests-in-agriculture-diversification-food-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/govt-invests-in-agriculture-diversification-food-security\/","title":{"rendered":"Gov\u2019t invests in agriculture diversification &amp; food security"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n\n<p>Guyana\u2019s agriculture sector is rapidly diversifying beyond traditional crops, with strong government support for high-value commodities such as coconut, spices, and citrus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Minister of Agriculture Zulfikar Mustapha says these industries are at the heart of efforts to transform rural livelihoods and increase farmers\u2019 incomes, positioning Guyana as a regional leader in value-added production and food security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In&nbsp;Budget 2026,&nbsp;the government has made a major push to expand high-value crop production, prioritizing increased cultivation, improved access to planting materials and the development of modern processing facilities across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The minister\u00a0noted\u00a0that coconut production continues to expand, with millions allocated\u00a0to support the\u00a0industry\u2019s\u00a0growth, strengthen\u00a0local consumption and\u00a0boost\u00a0export\u00a0potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;<strong>Coconut has been a very important commodity. $195 million have been allocated to expand coconut cultivation, and we are hoping that we&#8217;ll expand it by almost 5,000 acres.\u00a0As I said, in 2025, we expand over 2,000 acres of coconut. And as I said, we want to double that, and we will continue to distribute high yielding seedlings and construct modern facilities for processing coconut waste<\/strong>,&#8221; Minister Mustapha stated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Spice cultivation, particularly in Region One,&nbsp;skyrocketed\u2014growing from&nbsp;85&nbsp;acres in 2020 to more than&nbsp;4,800&nbsp;acres in 2025, supported by new processing facilities at Hosororo and Port Kaituma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2025 alone,&nbsp;54,909&nbsp;kilogrammes of turmeric were processed and sold locally, helping reduce imports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;<strong>We will continue to expand our spice cultivation through the distribution of planting materials (18:10) and farmer training to boost production and reduce imports<\/strong>,&#8221; he added. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Citrus production is also surging, with more than eleven hundred farmers receiving over forty-three thousand saplings,&nbsp;including oranges, tangerines, limes&nbsp;and lemons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Additionally,&nbsp;over&nbsp;1000 farmers trained in&nbsp;horticulture techniques, backed by government-supported propagation of&nbsp;mixed&nbsp;orchard crops,&nbsp;such as citrus, passion fruit, soursop, cherries, guava, and pineapple.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Guyana\u2019s agriculture sector is rapidly diversifying beyond traditional crops, with strong government support for high-value commodities such as coconut, spices, and citrus. Minister of Agriculture Zulfikar Mustapha says these industries&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28211,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[468,572,350],"tags":[488,537,591,412,405,592],"class_list":["post-28210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agriculture","category-budget-2026","category-news","tag-488","tag-budget-2026","tag-ministry-of-agriculture","tag-ncn-guyana","tag-ncn-news","tag-spices"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28210"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28212,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28210\/revisions\/28212"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}