Guyana’s National Pathway For Food Systems Transformation

The Policy establishes a strategic framework aimed at restructuring the national food system to ensure that all citizens have access to safe and nutritious food. Issued by the Ministry of Agriculture, the primary purpose of this instrument is to align national efforts with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, specifically targeting poverty reduction, community health, and long-term food security. The pathway serves as a coordinated roadmap to manage structural hunger challenges and respond to acute shocks, such as climate extremes and disease outbreaks, through a more sustainable and resilient food system.
The document identifies three core thematic areas for intervention. The first thematic area, Food Security, focuses on the transformation of the primary production sector to increase productivity and guarantee the availability of diverse food products. Key measures include scaling up social protection programs by enhancing their financing and reach, as well as making delivery systems more adaptive to crises. The policy emphasizes the importance of making food systems more productive to fight poverty and create employment opportunities within the agri-food value chain.
The second thematic area, Climate Resilience, outlines strategies to build agricultural systems capable of withstanding environmental pressures. This involves the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices and the integration of disaster risk management into food production. The third thematic area, Funding and Financing, addresses the mobilization of financial resources for food system actors. Specific provisions include providing blended finance solutions, concessional loans, and subsidies to help develop domestic food value chains. It also promotes public-private partnerships (PPPs) to support investments in green energy, cold chains, and ICTs for farmers and agri-food SMEs.
The implementation of this pathway is reliant on the successful execution of the Guyana Agriculture Strategy 2021-2025 and the CARICOM Agri-Food Systems Agenda. The Ministry of Agriculture is the responsible authority for achieving the targets set over a 5 to 10-year horizon. The instrument also highlights procedural aspects such as technology transfer and training to help food companies comply with standards for safety and reliability, alongside the commitment of a targeted allocation of public spending toward agri-investment and the empowerment of women and youth within the system.