Agriculture Minister, Zulfikar Mustapha recently revealed his ministry’s plans to make Region One (Barima-Waini) the spice capital of Guyana. During his year-end press conference on December 30, 2023, Minister Mustapha said there will be a concentrated production of ginger, turmeric, nutmeg, and black pepper.
With respect to ginger, he said there has been a large increase in production in Region One and some parts of Region Three. He said, “To date, we have a total of 350 acres of ginger. These were cultivated between August 2022 and May 2023. In 2023, there has been a 4% increase in production to 22,212 metric tonnes.”
He said too that close to $30 million in planting materials were distributed to farmers from Regions One and Three. These inputs are expected to increase this year.
For turmeric, the minister said over 216 farmers benefited from planting materials for 2023.
“So it’s four spices we are concentrating on…we want Region One to be the spice region where we can do large-scale production of these spices,” the minister said.
Guyana currently imports almost US$1M in spices annually. Government through the National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (NAREI) aims to slash these costs by prioritizing the resuscitation of spices.
These efforts form part of the nation’s strategy to reduce its food import bill by 25 percent by 2025.
