During an outreach in Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice) earlier this year, Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo announced that the government would be importing 2,000 milking cows from Brazil.
Minister of Agriculture Zulfikar Mustapha, when asked for an update on Wednesday, said the Ministry is still working out the logistics for importing these milking cows.
“We are still working with our partners over there to get it. We haven’t started bringing it in as yet, so we are still discussing the option of what some of the breeds that we will bring into the country,” the Minister told MTV News Update.
He said the Agriculture Ministry would be working with farmers to develop the dairy sector, as there is a ready market for these products.
A $150M milk farm is being developed at Onverwagt, West Coast Berbice. In addition, Guyana’s Demerara Distillers Limited (DDL) is working along with LR Group (an Israeli investor) to establish an advanced dairy farm in Guyana.
“We’ll be working with those dairy plants to produce milk so that they can have supplies […] so we already have a market here, so we’ll be working with the farmers.”
Young people, women, and other vulnerable groups will be the primary beneficiaries of these cows, the Agriculture Minister stressed.
He also revealed that almost $30M is spent annually importing dairy products, and this initiative is geared towards reducing this import bill.
