Crop production to increase with new $450 million tissue culture lab

A Biotechnology Plant Tissue Culture Laboratory was officially commissioned on Tuesday at the National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (NAREI), marking a major milestone in Guyana’s ongoing journey towards agricultural modernisation.

The facility was developed with technical support from the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) of India and financed by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). It was constructed at a cost of $450 million.

Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha described the lab as a landmark achievement that will significantly transform Guyana’s agricultural production capabilities. While the lab was officially opened on Tuesday, it will not become fully operational until December 2025.

With 11 plant nurseries operating across the country, many of which have long required upgrades, this new biotechnology lab is expected to support and strengthen the overall plant propagation network.

The Agriculture Minister revealed that, the current production capacity is 15,000 plantlets annually but with the new lab this is expected to increase to one million plantlets.

“This tissue culture lab will produce disease-free high quality planting materials at scales and rapidly multiply key crops,” Mustapha said.

Those key crops are banana, plantains, sweet potatoes, pineapples and citrus.

Mustapha said these priority crops are expected to help reduce CARICOM’s food import bill by 25 per cent by 2030.

“In today’s world, agriculture is not only about planting and farming, sometimes we want to use 10, 15 years techniques now, we have to change the way we are doing things and we have to ensure we bring into practice, innovation, sustainability, precision, those are things that will help us to have better yield and increase production.

“As the global population rise and climate change threatens food productivity, we must turn to biotechnology and research solutions to secure our food future,” Mustapha stated.

Director of Teri, Dr. G Rudra Narsimha Rao during brief remarks said the institute brings over five decades of experience in operating the commercial scale plant tissue laboratory in India.

“The plant tissue laboratory play a vital role in agriculture advancement by enabling the large scale production of disease free, high quality plants through micro propagation,” Dr. Rao said.

The initiative will not only improve the quality of planting materials available to farmers but also enhance crop resilience and productivity nationwide.