- Outlines plan to achieve such
At a press conference on Sunday, President Dr Irfaan Ali highlighted the importance of achieving food security in the region and also sustaining the poultry sector.
Dr Ali said that there has been an increased demand for poultry within Guyana and the region, despite recording an increase in production; statistics show that the region still imports poultry on a wide scale.
Providing an explanation on these statistics, the Head of State explained “we are looking at a twelve per cent (12%) increase between 2014 and 2020...however, while we had that increase, import still increased extra-regional import. So while production increase by 12% in poultry extra-regional import increased by 31.5%.”
He said “in the very period we have seen a 20% increase in the consumption pattern of poultry. Now astonishingly in 2020 extra-regional markets supplied an estimated 98.8 % of poultry imports of CARICOM. That is poultry and the byproducts of poultry.”
In order to achieve that goal he noted that a backward and forward analysis was done and as such it was determined that “to achieve this (goal) 20 by 25 projection in poultry we’ll require close to 1.6 million metric tons of feed given that 65% of this will contribute corn we will need more than a million metric tons of corn to produce feed.”
With this in mind, there will be an increased demand for corn and as such Guyana’s role in this equation is crucial.
“Our intention here in Guyana for pursuing corn and soya is not only sustainable it is integral in this equation of sustainability in terms of poultry and increased production for the regional market. Here in Guyana, we have started on an aggressive programme and we are targeting to produce 75% of our demand by 2023 after which we will target our regional demand.”
Currently, there is a high demand for poultry in Guyana, however, that demand cannot be met as there was a high demand during the Holiday season.
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