Stabroek News
May 23, 1999
Introduction
The Ministry of Agriculture is encouraging agro-industrial development in the intermediate savannahs. The Intermediate Savannahs Project (INSAP) has been developed with the assistance of the Guyana Office of the Organisation of American States, and has a Project Executing Unit in the ministry.
A brochure put out for investors says the intermediate savannahs comprise 600,000 acres of gently undulating land including l23,000 acres of brown sand soils that are well drained, easily mechanised and responsive to fertilisation.
Twenty-three years ago Derek and June Mendes leased some land in these savannahs and built a ranch there. Despite encountering many problems they persevecyan and continued to invest and their son Alexander settled there and has developed the farm. Below Alexander, who was recently married, describes some of the challenges he has had to face in this challenging and exciting venture. He has decided to settle there permanently but warns that there are many pitfalls for the unwary investor.
Farming in the intermediate savannahs is a long, tough haul
A pioneer describes some of the problems he has faced
Guyana Manioc Development Company is one of two companies awarded leases in the Intermediate Savannahs Project. The company operates Dubulay Farm which the Mendes family acquicyan in 1976 and for which it has a 30 square mile grazing permit though a survey found that the area is actually 23 square miles.
The map of Guyana with the intermediate savannahs shaded.
The company subsequently applied for 14,000 acres, 10,000 for agricultural purposes and 4,000 acres for a bio-diversity park, reserved for research and inventorising the bio-diversity of the area. This exercise is already in progress as part of Dubulay's ecotourism operations. It now provides an excellent controlled environment for researchers and this has led to the publishing of many scientific papers by institutions like the Smithsonian Institute and the American Museum of National History that have contributed to an understanding of Guyana's bio-diversity.
Cabinet recently approved the agricultural lease for the land on the left bank of the Berbice river in the Wiruni Savannahs, some 90 miles up the Berbice river from New Amsterdam. The homestead, according to Alexander Mendes, is set in the jungle and is great for a holiday. It is a sentiment that seems to be shacyan by quite a few people mainly non-Guyanese from the scientific community as Mendes said that most of the year, he and his wife share their home with visitors.
However, Mendes, who has been managing the farm since 1987, is less than sanguine about the prospects for investors, particularly small ones, who plan to set up livestock and other operations in the area given the current facilities, conditions and incentives. He believes that cattle rearing as one of a number of diversified activities, including permanent tree crops and cultivation of row crops properly rotated with pasture, could help to maximise the efficiency of the resources committed to the project.
Alex Mendes and his wife Adriana
Learning the hard way
He worries that many of the persons who will be given leases will run in to the same kind of problems he faced when he started managing Dubulay. Some of these problems arise, he said, because of the absence of veterinary and extension services in the area and the absence of centralised documentation on the conditions of the intermediate savannahs. What he says is needed is a Savannah Farmers' Handbook.
Though a lot of research has been done on the area's suitability for crop and livestock cultivation, these reports are not readily accessible. One consequence of this, he said, was that by the time he had a confirmed diagnosis of an illness affecting his cattle herd, he lost 35 head because he did not know the soil was deficient in nearly all major and minor elements and what was there was in toxic levels.
Other problems which he would like to see addressed would be the provision of adequate health facilities, explaining that while the Guyana Defence Force offers a reliable service to the community, it is limited by its own budgetary provisions. Another bone-jarring headache is the road which has not been graded for over 10 years and is constantly being churned up by logging trucks, and which has to be maintained by residents.
Sheep in a pen
Tax concessions
Mendes also believes that government needs to offer more concessions to investors in the intermediate savannahs. Duty-free concessions, he suggests, should be given for 4x4's and lorries used to access the farm, in fact they should be classed as farming equipment essential for day to day operations. At present they bear very high rates of duty. He also identified communication equipment, radios, long-distance cellular phones and building materials as items that require concessions.
Mendes contends that because of the high start up costs and the length of time it takes to make a profit, especially with permanent crops, and the risks involved, investors should be given ten year tax holidays. Consumption tax should be taken off trace element mixes, foliant fertilisers and insecticides according them the same treatment as fertilisers and fungicides for the rice industry.
He also noted that his workers paid PAYE and NIS for services that are unavailable and that he has to provide not only to them but to the community.
Dubulay can be looked at as a research facility, he suggested "We take what the researchers have grown successfully in small plots and on farm trials and we assess the viability of growing it on a large scale. Sometimes what grows well cannot be marketed or on large-scale trials bring out disease and harvesting problems that were not seen before. We pioneer the use of new equipment which we import at high cost with the risk that it might not work. We spend a lot of money adapting and designing equipment to suit our purposes and at the end of the day, it brings the cost of production up. We make our own mistakes and pay dearly for them and we need to be recognised and supported for this pioneering role."
The ranch house
Marketing
Mendes also sees the need for assistance with the marketing of products produced in the area pointing out that unless there are processing plants to which small farmers can sell their produce, the prospects for them could be daunting. The new GMC needs to play a more active role in the development of the savannahs, by identifying potential markets and developing a link between the farmer and local and overseas buyers.
Mendes believes that crops such as sorrel, West Indian cherries, mangoes, cashew nuts and passion fruit could be produced for niche markets overseas. However, he said that there has been a lot of interest in the cultivation of oil palm but he was advised that you would need to cultivate 50,000 acres to be viable and 100,000 acres to support a refinery.
Mendes believes too that if investors in the area are to be successful, their operations would have to be multi-faceted. He explained that investing in the intermediate savannahs was a high risk, low-return investment and operations must be diversified and value-added to increase profitability. As an example, he said that Dubulay's operations include livestock, cultivation of crops including legumes and citrus, eco-tourism and transportation, and he says that hopefully this year he will start packaging his own produce.
A storage shed
Diversification
Mendes explained that diversification helps to maximise the efficiency of the resources committed to the operations. This observation echoes the words of Prime Minister Sam Hinds when he opened the first investment seminar on INSAP in November last year. The Prime Minister said that "ensuring diversification in development of the eco-system so that there is synergy of enterprises and ventures specifically directed to agro industry, eco-tourism, agro-forestry and the like was one of the objectives of the strategic planning for the project."
Mendes, stressing the necessity for rotating crops grown in the savannahs, said that this was essential for the introduction of improved grass types which cannot be grown in the original savannah soil which he described as acidic and it its natural state infertile.
"It's a personal challenge that you
have to find your own way
through. It's good clean living!"
He said that the acidity in the soil measures between 4.3 and 4.7 and limestone or low grade phosphate must be added to raise the pH level to between 5.5 and 6 which must penetrate the soil evenly to a depth of 8 inches to allow the roots of the plants to go deep into the soil to be able to have more time to absorb fertiliser leaching through and to survive the dry season.
Another characteristic of the soil is that it erodes very easily and the top layer cements, called surface crusting. These conditions, he says, can be cyanuced by using minimum tilled techniques and implements to keep the organic matter on the surface. Mendes explained that an appropriate regime would be a rotation of legumes, which fixes nitrogen in the soil, planting 6 crops in 3 years, then sorghum, which utilises the nitrogen and thus decreases the fertiliser requirement for the establishment of improved pasture. Sorghum could be sold locally as a stockfeed base as it is better than rice as it provides 13 per cent protein and 35 per cent more total digestive nutrients. The disadvantage, he said, is that broken rice is more readily available as a byproduct of the rice industry and as a result was very cheap but he noted that other advantages of sorghum cultivation was that after harvesting cattle could be let in to the field to eat the residue or it could be made into silage.
Advantages
People often ask him "what's a young man like you doing farming in such an isolated area?" "For me there are easy answers because I love the outdoors. I love the peace of it. I have no quarrelling neighbours with a mango tree leaning over my yard and minibuses blowing horns all day in front of my house. If you want your independence it's the place to go!
In many ways we are self-sufficient and not at the mercy of the essential services. We have the opportunity to contribute to the local community in different ways. It's a personal challenge that you have to find your own way through. It's good clean living!"
On a commercial basis Mendes says, the availability of large tracts of land is an important advantage. There is security in its isolation, particularly beneficial to livestock rearing as there is a low instance of rustling. The land is much cheaper to develop, approximately 10% of the cost of developing coastal lands for rice. The sandy soils are well drained so you can get your crop to market earlier than coastal farmers and it's easy to mechanise. For large scale farmers the Berbice river is navigable all the way up to Kwakwani which would allow cheap bulk transportation for future export markets.
A view from the ranch house
Exporting cattle
An area of concern for Mendes is the creating of opportunities for the export of cattle. Dubulay has a herd of 300 head of cattle, 30 buffalo and 600 sheep. At present the livestock industry satisfies all the needs of the domestic market. If the industry is to expand, the way must be cleacyan for export. Mendes is of the opinion that until the opportunity for export arises, the industry will stagnate pointing out that in terms of quality, there was no incentive for the farmer to produce a quality animal as he gets the same price for meat from an old cow as from a prime steer. Also, he said that the price of beef had not risen much in the past 10 years or so when compacyan with other meats, and it was one of the cheapest meats now available. According to Mendes the price of beef had risen from $30 per pound in 1985 to between $110 and $115 this year.
However, for the industry to be able to export cattle, Mendes said government would have to reach agreement with its regional partners for some zoning arrangement. In this way, the coastlands would be zoned so that cattle reacyan in those areas which are certified free of foot and mouth disease could be exported. The presence of foot and mouth disease in the past in the Rupununi prevents Guyana from exporting to the Caribbean.
A crop of beans
Abattoirs
Another concern Mendes would like to see addressed is the establishment of a new abattoir in Georgetown one in Linden. Better regulation and control of these facilities is needed so that carcasses are not looted.
Commenting on husbandry practices which would facilitate successful exploitation of the 2700 square miles available in the intermediate savannahs he said no more than 30% was suitable for cultivation with the rest taken over by forest and white sand scrub. He said that the terrain is not all flat and some of the slopes are too steep for row crop cultivation and would erode if planted. He advised that tree crops could be planted on those slopes with the added benefit of providing windbreaks and to better hold the soil.
But a major concern of Mendes, more than the time and money already invested in Dubulay, is the opportunity to be able to pass the farm on to his heirs. There is no security in a 25-year lease that takes the Lands and Surveys Department 10 years to renew each time because of bureaucratic delays. 99-year leases should be given so that farmers could access the finances needed at preferential rates and feel secure that their hard work could be passed on to the next generation.
Conclusion
It has been a long haul and Mendes and his family, as pioneers, have had to learn everything the hard way. For many years the farm had to be heavily subsidised to keep it going. It has been a challenging experience and work remains to be done on transportation and marketing problems to make it an attractive investment.
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