Jun 17, 2026
2 min read
Guyana is positioning itself to tap into a US$9 billion global push by the World Bank Group to transform smallholder farming as Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha met Tuesday with a World Bank mission team to chart the rollout of its AgriConnect programme in the country.
Mustapha met with Eva Hasiner and Winston Dawes, both senior agriculture economists, and Andres Ramirez Salom, an associate investment officer, to discuss implementation of the initiative, which aims to help 300 million smallholder farmers worldwide shift from subsistence farming to surplus production.
AgriConnect seeks to connect farmers with finance, technology, infrastructure and markets, transforming smallholder agriculture into what the World Bank calls a driver of job creation, investment and resilience.
Mustapha said Guyana was well positioned to benefit from the programme, which launched last year, and reaffirmed his ministry's commitment to its implementation.
Hasiner said earlier stakeholder consultations had identified Guyana's vulnerability to climate change, access to markets and logistics, and access to financing and agricultural insurance as priority areas. She said the initiative aims to set measurable targets by 2030, including raising farming incomes.
Mustapha said logistics remained a challenge in Guyana and the wider Caribbean. He pointed to government efforts to expand financing access through the planned Guyana Development Bank, along with partnerships linking landowning farmers to investors with capital.
He said future consultations needed to better demonstrate the initiative's benefits to farmers, agribusinesses and other stakeholders to secure buy-in.
Mustapha cited government investment to modernise the agriculture sector, strengthen climate resilience, improve infrastructure and expand value-added production, saying the efforts aligned with AgriConnect's goals.
The programme is being rolled out in several countries. Senegal has become the first to establish a country compact, focused on grains, horticulture and livestock, while Brazil has set a target of reaching one million family farms by 2030.
