Government targets production costs, market access to ease food prices – Mid-Year report

The government is seeking to cushion food prices by reducing farmers’ costs, expanding domestic agricultural production, and creating more direct routes between producers and consumers, as inflationary pressures and difficult weather weigh on household food bills.

Food prices rose 6.7 per cent between the end of 2025 and June 2026, accounting for 3.4 percentage points of the 4.4 per cent increase in overall consumer prices during the period, according to the government’s 2026 Mid-Year Report.

Vegetables and vegetable products alone contributed 2.5 percentage points to the overall increase.

The report attributed the pressure on food and energy prices to several factors, including imported inflation, increased demand for food supplies, retail mark-ups and unfavourable weather.

The government said it responded by investing in expanding agricultural production across Guyana’s 10 administrative regions, as well as providing cash assistance and measures intended to limit increases in electricity, water and fuel costs.

President Irfaan Ali, speaking at a news conference on September 14, 2026, said his administration had also reversed increases in drainage and irrigation charges and land rental fees to ease farmers’ expenses.

“We reversed that so that we can help farmers to be more productive. We can remove this cash burden on farmers,” Ali said.

“All of this was to bring down the cost of production and increase productivity,” he said.

The focus on production costs comes after unusually heavy rainfall disrupted agriculture during the first half of the year.

Guyana’s agriculture, forestry and fishing sector contracted by an estimated 0.5 per cent, largely because of a decline in the “other crops” subsector, where sustained above-normal rainfall disrupted planting, damaged crops and restricted access to fields.

The effects were particularly pronounced for some food crops. The other crops subsector contracted by an estimated 6.4 per cent during the first half of 2026. Vegetable output fell 4.2 per cent, while producing crops declined 19.1 per cent.

The government said it was expanding climate-resilient cultivation, including through its national shade-house programme, as farmers face the additional risk of El Niño conditions later in the year.

The government spent $40.8 billion on the agriculture sector in the first six months of 2026, according to the Mid-Year Report, with support directed towards measures including planting materials, technical assistance, pest management and shade houses. Rice farmers also received $2.8 billion in cash subsidies to help offset higher production costs, with payments reaching 5,106 farmers.

Rice has been one of the stronger areas of agricultural production. The subsector expanded by an estimated 4.4 per cent in the first half of the year, producing 414,088 tonnes of rice equivalent, compared with 410,194 tonnes during the same period in 2025. The government raised its full-year production estimate to 827,838 tonnes.

Ali said the administration was also working to establish farmers’ markets across the country, an effort intended to reduce the distance — and potentially the price difference — between farms and consumers. “We are now working with farmers to bring their produce directly to the market,” he said.

The measures come against a volatile international backdrop.

The Mid-Year Report stated that global headline inflation was projected to be 4.7 per cent in 2026, up from 4.1 per cent in 2025, driven largely by higher food and energy prices associated with geopolitical tensions.

Inflation in the Caribbean was projected to rise to 6.6 per cent from 6.1 per cent last year.

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