Agriculture Minister, Zulfikar Mustapha, on Wednesday said Guyana is moving from a country that simply grows food to one that designs and manages modern agricultural ecosystems.
He commissioned the Government of Guyana’s state-of-the-art Tunnel Ventilated Poultry Pens Project at Mon Repos, East Coast Demerara, a release from the Ministry of Agriculture said.
The more than $1 billion initiative, conceptualized by President Irfaan Ali, forms part of the Government’s flagship Agriculture Innovation and Entrepreneurship Programme (AIEP).
The Minister noted that Guyana’s poultry industry has recorded unprecedented expansion over the last five years.
“Between 2020 and 2025, poultry production in Guyana exploded from 43,736 tonnes to 91,382 tonnes, marking a remarkable 108.9 per cent increase. We are no longer trying to catch up. We are leading the CARICOM 25 by 2025 + 5 Initiative, driving down the regional food import bill and building a stronger, more self-reliant Caribbean,” he said.
Delivering the feature address, Prime Minister Mark Phillips said the Government has developed a clear vision for the future of Guyana’s agriculture sector.
“We have developed a vision of what we want for agriculture here in Guyana. Ours is a vision of where technology is harnessed to shield farmers from the whims of the weather, where local production of inputs frees them from the volatility of global markets. Where value-addedprocessing ensures that their produce does not perish, but instead reaches consumers with quality and consistency,” Phillips said.
“This Commissioning Ceremony of the Tunnel Ventilated Pen Project, under our flagship Agriculture Innovation and Entrepreneurship Programme (AIEP), is the living, breathing proof of that reality. It is a testament to what happens when political vision meets youthful energy, and when public investment catalyzes private innovation,” he stated.
The Minister said that the Tunnel Ventilated Pens Project represents an investment of more than $1 billion in infrastructure, equipment, and training and has expanded the AIEP across Regions Three, Four, and Five. The project comprises five state-of-the-art poultry facilities located at Mon Repos, Cornelia Ida, and Onverwagt, all of which have been completed and are currently stocked with birds that are performing exceptionally well.
Designed to international poultry production standards, each tunnel-ventilated pen accommodates between 20,000 and 45,000 birds, with broilers reaching market weight in just five to six weeks.
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