GUYANA-AGRICULTURE-Guyana hosting third edition of caribbean Agri Investment Forum and Expo.

GEORGETOWN -- The third Caribbean Agri Investment Forum and Expo opened here on Friday with President Irfaan Ali announcing that the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture (IICA) will be assisting in the conversion of the Guyana School of Agriculture (GSA) into a Centre for Excellence in Agriculture.

'IICA and the government of Guyana have agreed that we will develop a centre of excellence for our young people in the field of agriculture here in Guyana for across the region,' Ali told the opening ceremony adding that the GSA would be transformed into the IICA-Guyana Centre of Excellence for studies in the field of agriculture with a focus on innovation and resilience.

He said that a number of Guyanese and other Caribbean youths will be travelling to IICA's headquarters in Costa Rica to be trained in innovation.

More than 200 exhibitors and over 80 agro-processors are showcasing their products during the three-day forum and expo is being held under the theme 'Achieving Vision 25 by 2025'.

The organisers said that the event seeks to highlight discussions on the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) region's hefty food import bill and how countries can further collaborate to reduce it.

In his address, President Ali, who has lead responsibility for agriculture within the quasi CARICOM cabinet, said IICA would also be establishing a system to provide real-time data to farmers across the region.

'We will be setting up here in Guyana a situation room that will give real-time data. It will be the development of a CARICOM situation room that will give real-time data to our farmers to allow evidence-based decision-making and more proactive planning in terms of our crop development and growing,' he said.

Ali said in Guyana, the focus would on continuing to encourage youth and women in smart, technology-driven agriculture. He said agriculture innovation centres would be launched in several regions over the next three days and would be funded to the tune of US$4.5 million from ExxonMobil's Greater Guyana Initiative.

'This innovation centre will be run and owned young people of which we want 35 percent to be women,' Ali said, announcing also that Guyana is also moving towards establishing a hatching eggs facility in Guyana.

Deputy CARICOM Secretary General Dr. Amstrong Alexis told the ceremony that the event ' allows us to build on the successes of the previous expos held in Guyana and Trinidad, which set the stage for some remarkable...