Gov’t building a ‘resilient, sustainable and viable’ poultry sector – President Ali

─Farmers benefit from GLDA poultry symposium

As part of efforts to revolutionise Guyana’s poultry sector, the Guyana Livestock Development Authority (GLDA) hosted a symposium with small, medium, and large-scale poultry farmers at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre on Friday.

The symposium, a brainchild of President, Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali, presented a platform for farmers to share challenges affecting them within the poultry sector.

It also aimed to develop a consultation-based, holistic system to increase poultry production towards the goal of attaining food security.

Delivering the feature address, President Ali asserted, “The poultry sector in Guyana must be rebuilt in a resilient, sustainable, viable, and profitable way. Today’s meeting is not only to deal with the current situation and crisis. It is to position the sector. We are going to do everything that it takes to position this sector to be one of the strongest poultry sectors in the region.”

He told farmers that the government is committed to providing support and investment to assist farmers in reducing difficulties faced and improving the poultry industry.

“There are a number of things that we have to do if we are to build a resilient, viable, sustainable, and profitable poultry sector. There are a number of things that have to be done, and there are a number of sacrifices that we have to make. We all will have to give a bit here if we are to achieve the type of vision that we have for this industry,” the president expressed.

As such, he outlined several initiatives to boost the sector and mitigate the effects of various economic shocks, including increasing the production of rice for poultry feed, and the reduction of vaccine costs for livestock.

Meanwhile, Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha, lauded the president’s vision to improve the livestock industry.

“We met with about 50 poultry farmers at a meeting a week ago, and the president said he wants most of the poultry farmers together, so that we can brainstorm ideas, and we can put new initiatives in place so that we can increase our production and lower the cost of production,” Minister Mustapha stated.

Farmers were allowed to raise their concerns and have them addressed by the president, Minister Mustapha, and officials from his ministry.

Over the next week, consultations with poultry farmers will continue to chart a way forward for the improvement of the industry.