700 acres of closed Wales Estate leased for coconut production

Last Updated on Tuesday, 5 November 2019, 6:15 by Writer

Dr. Arlington Chesney (second from left) and Dr. Patrick Antoine (extreme right).

Amazonia Expert Services Limited (AES), a newly-formed company, has secured a lease of 700 acres of land at the closed Wales Sugar Estate, West Bank Demerara, to get into the coconut industry

The major shareholders of AES, which is made up of entrepreneurs, academics and professionals, are former Executive Director of the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI), Dr. Arlington Chesney and well-known Grenadian economist, Ambassador Patrick Antoine.

“We have been given a lease for the land and we are in the process of getting a lease for the processing facility,” Chesney said. He added that in addition to coconut water processing, dried and grated coconut would be produced for a market in the Dominican Republic.

He said the lease is for 20 years in the first instance with a right to renewal.

Dr. Chesney told reporters Monday evening that his company would be also be producing food in greenhouses for oil drilling and exploration rigs that would include a “spin-off” relationship with farmers to use the technology.

Contracts for the supply of coconut coir, he said, to the southern United States (US) have already been lined up. “Once we do the desiccated coconuts, then that will come in a little bit faster,” he said.

AES hopes to begin work at Wales early next year and employ 45 “best” workers who are “adapted, well-tuned”.

Speaking at the launch of Unicon Guyana Inc, a company that has teamed up with the Ghana-headquartered Unicon Western Holdings Limited, Chesney disclosed that one of the properties at the Wales Sugar Estate would be used to train successful applicants to work on drillships.