Guyana and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) will work on upgrading the delivery of agriculture education in Guyana with the establishment of a Centre of Excellence for Studies in Agriculture.
IICA, which comprises 34 member states and is the specialised agency for agriculture, supports its members in agriculture and rural well-being. The agency specialises in areas such as technology and innovation, agricultural health, food safety and quality, and international agricultural trade, among others.
President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali, while delivering the feature address at the launch of the Agri-Investment Forum and Expo on Friday, noted that the Guyana School of Agriculture will see some changes.
“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…The Guyana School of Agriculture will be transformed into the IICA Guyana Centre of Excellence, for studies in the field of Agriculture focusing on innovation and resilience,” President Ali told the gathering at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre.
On a recent visit to Costa Rica, where the Headquarters of IICA is located, President Ali noted that it was also agreed that youths from Guyana and the rest of CARICOM will also benefit from training in Costa Rica at IICA’s headquarters.
“Our young people from CARICOM will be going to the regional headquarters of IICA to be trained in their innovation centre and their centre of excellence to come back here in Guyana,” President Ali said. The partnership with IICA, according to the president, does not end there and a ‘Situation Room’, “that will give real-time data. It will [see] 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.”
