Guyana turns to Cuba to increase honey production as T&T prepares to slacken honey law

Last Updated on Tuesday, 10 October 2023, 17:14 by Denis Chabrol

Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha and Permanent Secretary Delma Nedd.

Hopeful that Trinidad and Tobago will soon lift its colonial-era ban on foreign honey, Guyana is enlisting Cuba’s support to increase honey production, Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha said Tuesday.

“We have some specialists from Cuba that will help us to start our apiary in Guyana,” he said when asked by Demerara Waves Online News. Apiaries, he said, are expected to be established in Region One (Barima-Waini) and Region Nine (Upper Takatu-Upper Essequibo).

“We are hoping to go large-scale honey production,” he added.

He said Cuba’s Agriculture Minister, Ydael Pérez is expected to sign an agreement while in Guyana for the Agri-Food Investment Forum and Expo scheduled for October 20 – 22, 2023. Approximately 150 exhibitors and 400 processors, including 30 from overseas have confirmed their participation.

Mr Mustapha said based on recent commitments by Trinidad and Tobago, he was optimistic that that twin-island nation would amend its 88-year-old law that restricts the movement and sale of foreign honey offshore and onshore. “I’m very optimistic, also, that we can have an agreement with Trinidad shortly so that we can export our honey there,” he said.

The Guyanese Agriculture Minister said he was working with his Trinidad and Tobago counterpart and “I’m hoping that we can get some changes to the laws.” “I spoke with him up to last Saturday and he has assured me that the law will change,” he said.

Trinidad and Tobago’s archaic law that effectively bans honey from all other c0untries has for several years been at the centre of a trade dispute at the Caribbean Community’s trade ministerial council.

Honey exports from Guyana and a number of other Caribbean Community member states must pass through Trinidad to North American and European destinations but due to the existing law, Guyanese producers have been losing millions of US dollars.