Santa Rosa grows special kind of coffee
─ “This new variety of ground coffee is special because it is sturdier than the set produced before”- Min. Garrido-Lowe
By Alleya Hamilton
DPI, Guyana, Thursday, May 30, 2019
“Indigenous People in Santa Rosa have been growing coffee and this is a special kind of coffee…” proclaimed Minister within the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs, Valerie Garrido-Lowe, as she addressed residents of Santa Rosa, Moruca on a recent outreach.
Minister Garrido-Lowe urged the residents to be proud of this new cultivation because of its quality. She noted that the new variety of ground coffee is special because it is sturdier than the set that was produced in the earlier years, when farmers in Region 1 cultivated the product.
“We have been growing coffee for years then suddenly it died out. When we started again with the project, I was so happy to see people pull the vines from their old coffee trees and it started to bear again,” the minister stated.
This recent project has been resuscitated with the inclusion of fifteen farmers in Region 1, with 800 coffee beans being allocated to each farmer. It is expected that these farmers will bear witness to the fruit of this cultivation in the next two years.
The project is a $24M investment by the government and it is currently being supervised by Dr. Leroy Santiago, a Jamaican Agricultural scientist, who is lauded for his contributions in various agricultural projects in the Caribbean.
The coffee beans were imported from Mexico and the minister assured the residents in the meeting that the beans will not be prone to vector-borne diseases, since they were created with biological molecules outside their normal biological context.
Minister Garrido-Lowe mentioned that the coffee industry has been reintegrated to again sustain the livelihood of farmers in the region, and with the revitalised approach, the industry will strive and provide financial stability for the residents.
Images by: Anil Seelall
