Lease of estate lands to Wales workers proposed
Earlier this month, proposals were made by the government through the Wales Estate’s Manager Devendra Kumar for the leasing of lands to workers affected by the closure of sugar operations at the estate.
A Government Information Agency (GINA) report yesterday said that the lands offered to workers are intended to transform them from a state of depending on sugar to becoming self-sufficient. There had been talk earlier of lands being made available to Wales workers following the end of sugar cultivation last year but there have been no concrete proposals.
“The kind of projects that we have earmarked for that, just to remind you, is in the area of rice cultivation, possibly aquaculture, the establishment of orchards and dairy farming.
As far as that goes, where we are talking about dairy farming and orchards, we’re looking at the possibility of setting up juice processing facilities and pasteurisation facilities here at Wales Estate to process the juices, as well as the dairy products,” Kumar explained to GINA.
Meanwhile, GINA said that approval has been given by the Board of Directors of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) for 14 workers from the Wales Estate to access lands by lease to cultivate sugar cane. These workers will now be recognised as farmers supplying sugar cane to the Uitvlugt estate.
According to Errol Hanoman, Chief Executive Officer of GuySuCo, a number of other workers had applied to be a part of this venture, GINA reported.