GUYSUCO to be diversified into non-sugar crops

Last Updated on Tuesday, 17 June 2025, 19:21 by Writer

President Irfaan Ali late on Tuesday announced that the state-owned Guyana Sugar Corporation (GUYSUCO) would be diversified into large-scale cultivation of other crops with provision for farmers to own and earn from the operations.

Addressing the Enmore Martyr’s Day ceremony to mark the slaying of five protesting sugar workers by British colonial police in 1948, he said the time has come to “think strategically” on how to expand GUYSUCO’s role beyond sugar. “GUYSUCO can and must become a hub of rural economic development. Its lands, infrastructure and knowledge base can support other crops like rice, corn, cassava, livestock operations,” he said. Dr Ali also said GUYSUCO could also provide agro-processing hubs, farmer training, extension services, and fabricating and engineering services.

The President elaborated that the corporation’s machinists had been historically recruited from GUYSUCO. “We have to leverage this human capital and human potential,” he said.

The President’s announcement might possibly be the first major diversification initiative for the loss-making corporation, the first having been under the Desmond Hoyte administration that had proposed tilapia farming, along with mechanisation, in cane plantations in the late 1980s to early 1990s.

Dr Ali said accompanying crop and skills diversification would be income-diversification. He said the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) would be consulted about how workers could own the mechanisation process and plantations. “We don’t only want the sugar workers to rely on their income from sugar,” he said. In that regard, he said the diversification plan entails the conversion of acreages of land into high-yielding, high-value production “that is owned by the workers”. Dr Ali said the government would “co-invest” with GUYSUCO workers to create new economic activity.

He promised that tens of thousands of jobs would be created from industrial hub in the former sugar-dependent community of Enmore, East Coast Demerara, noting that already there were 20 business proposals for manufacturing and other types of businesses.

While Dr Ali accused the then A Partnership for National Unity+Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) government of leaving almost GY$3 billion worth of standing cane in the fields to rot, he urged Guyanese to stop focussing on GUYSUCO’s failed performance characterised by GY$40 billion subsidies since 2020 and repeated failure to meet even very low production targets.

In contrast, he said government would this year convert an additional 3,000 hectares to support mechanisation to the already more than 5,000 converted hectares. He said since August 2020 – when his People’s Progressive Party (PPP) was returned to office – 4,500 GUYSUCO workers were rehired. “Make no mistake, we will make sugar great again. GUYSUCO has begun to fight its way back,” he said, while boasting that in recent times factory downtime has been reduced by 22 percent and cane yields increased by 11 percent. He added that investments were being made in predictive maintenance, automation, drone-assisted field monitoring and mechanisation to counter labour shortage and increased packaged sugar.