Lindeners take to the soil!
[youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aMdecS4G6U” width=”100%” height=”315″]
─ Min. Adams-Yearwood meets with female poultry farmers
─ Reg. 10 receives monies for Agricultural programmes
By Nikosi Bruce
DPI, Guyana, Saturday, May 18, 2019
Shereen Peters is the chairperson of the recently formed Green Acres Cash Crop and Poultry Farmers Group at Linden, Region 10. On Friday last, she stepped out in faith and was left with full of hope and excitement.
Minister within the Ministry of Agriculture, with responsibility for Rural Affairs, Valerie Adams-Yearwood, on Friday last, visited the Region 10 community of Linden and met with female poultry farmers. Among them was Shereen, who received word of the meeting with the minister at the Linden Enterprise Network Conference Room in Mackenzie Linden.
Telling her story, Shereen explained that the Green Acres Cash Crop and Poultry Farmers Group is relatively new and since they were not in a position to apply for loans as they had no collateral, the group is interested in learning the process which they could get help financially to grow their business.
Understanding the urgency, the minister wasted no time in collecting the young woman’s information and gave her all assurance that she will look into her matter promptly.
Female Poultry Farmers from across the region came out in their numbers to hear from the minister.
“What I hope to achieve here coming out from you, those of you who need help financially – either you’re looking for a grant and those of you who are looking for a loan; maybe you applied for a loan and you were turned down – We are here to help you!”
Minister Adams-Yearwood was accompanied by the Regional Agriculture Officer, the Regional Coordinator for the Guyana Livestock Development Authority (GLDA) and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Linden Enterprise Network (LEN), Tannizia Gasper.
With this sound technical team, many of the women were able to have specific small issues resolved almost immediately, while information was received from others for the technical staff to assist them within the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, Gasper explained to the group that the network is there, ready and willing to serve. “We would have received in the 2019 budget, $200M from the government, so there are funds there for Agriculture, one of our mandate for 2019 is in the area of developing the agriculture sector… We lend from ages 18 to 65, the basic requirement is getting two forms of ID, your business plan if you need more than $500,000.”
The women wasted no time in getting on board with the network, with some of them quickly collecting their forms for completion and submission.
The women gathered were encouraged to establish a Linden Poultry Farmers Association, which would see them being able to push for even greater assistance as a collective voice.
“You can advocate for things, and you know what, Linden always starts things, and I’m going to get somebody to work on this for you, to start putting things together, and we will get back to you in two weeks,” Minister Adams-Yearwood assured.
This meeting was described as a timely one. “Over the past 15 years, we’ve been asking the then administration to include agriculture as a project area in this region. We never enjoyed food security; this region is a part of the extractive industries if it’s not gold, it’s bauxite. So, all of our foodstuff comes into the region but we have been asking for the governments of the past to bring agriculture in,” explained Regional Chairman of Region 10, Renis Morian.
With the monies granted to the RDC and with the support of LEN, Linden and Region 10 as a whole, are poised to see a favourable agricultural boom.
Images: Jules Gibson.