Minister of Agriculture Zulfikar Mustapha on Tuesday while updating representatives of the media on various agriculture projects said the first trial of ‘wheat’ looks promising and an open field trial will commence soon.
The first trial was done by Chief Scientist Dr Mahendra Persaud at the Burma Research Station in Region Five, which the Minister said looks ‘very good’ and is encouraging.
“What he’ll do now he’ll come out in open field to start trial there and we are looking at other locations in the country, right, so I’m hoping in a matter of 2 weeks’ time, 2-3 weeks’ time from now, we’ll have at least two locations that we’ll do the trial.”
In the meantime, the ministry is looking at another area in Region Eight as the weather looks promising for wheat to grow there.
“The trial you don’t do large quantities, we’ll do like a half-acre, but it has to be at least about 2 to 3 tries to ensure that it has that kind to withstand the climate in the country and that we are doing.”
This project is intended to make Guyana self-sufficient as the Russia/Ukraine war led to the shortage of wheat and as a result led to an increase in wheat prices.
Meanwhile, the 1000 black belly sheep that are expected to be shipped to Guyana from Barbados are being quarantined before they are released.
The Agriculture Minister when providing an update explained that this is to ensure they are ridden of diseases.
“So hopefully in another couple weeks we can have it because they don’t want to send it directly…they want to quarantine it to ensure that there are no diseases with this sheep.”
The Black belly sheep programme was launched last month in Region Five by President Dr Irfaan Ali and will see Barbados supplying 1000 black belly sheep to Guyana and another 1000 in the future.
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