Agriculture in Guyana is dominated by sugar and rice production. Although once the chief industry, it has been overshadowed by mining.
Land use
Historically, agriculture was the chief economic activity in Guyana despite the coastal plain which comprised only about 5 percent of the country's land area being suitable for cultivation of crops, 2% arable land. Much of this fertile area lay more than one meter below the high-tide level of the sea and had to be protected by a system of dikes and dams which were built by the Dutch using slave labour. In the 1980s, there were reports that the 200-year-old system of dikes in Guyana was in a serious state of disrepair.
Production
Sugar and rice are the most important primary agricultural products, as they had been since the nineteenth century. Sugar was produced primarily for export whereas most rice was consumed domestically. Today in Guyana sugar production generates the most revenue in the primary industry, at around 15% of the total annual GNP. Other important crops include wheat, bananas, coconuts, coffee, cocoa, citrus fruits, pepper and pumpkin and livestock commodities from the country's various cattle ranches including beef, pork, poultry, dairy products and fish, notably shrimp. In some areas peanuts are also an important crop. Many of these products including rice are of extreme importance to national food security within the country. Small amounts of vegetables, vegetable oil and tobacco are also produced. During the late 1980s, some farmers succeeded in diversifying into specialty products such as heart-of-palm and asparagus for export to Europe.
Many Guyanese practise subsistence agriculture as well.
Sugar
The sugar industry made a huge impact on Guyana's history; influencing politics, waves of immigration, and Guyana's place in the world economy. Guyana's nationalized sugar industry is led by Guysuco, which owns five estates and eight factories for growing and processing sugar cane.
It was the Dutch who determined the climate was ideal for growing sugarcane, and it was from here the particular Demerara sugar originated. Sugar plantation labour was a destination point for the Atlantic slave trade, and when slavery was abolished under English rule as British Guiana, indentured servants were brought in, mainly from India. Indo-Guyanese continue to be a major force in agriculture.
International prices for sugar have a significant impact on Guyana's mainly for-export sugar industry. Sugar trade favoured European countries with tropical colonies where the cost of labour was exceptionally low. The expansion of government subsidized beet sugar industries in countries such as Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy and Russia led to a drop in world sugar prices, even as use of sugar continued to grow. The Brussels Sugar Convention of 1902 was the first international sugar agreement addressing sugar tariffs until the first World War.
The Booker company owned most sugar plantations in Guyana until the industry was nationalized in 1976. The rapid nationalization of the sugar industry in the mid-1970s led to severe management difficulties and an emigration of talent. The Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo), which took over the sugar plantations, lacked needed experience. Perhaps more important, Guysuco did not have access to the reserves of foreign capital required to maintain sugar plantations and processing mills during economically difficult periods. When production fell, Guysuco became increasingly dependent on state support to pay the salaries of its 20,000 workers. Second, the industry was hard-hit by labour unrest directed at the government of Guyana. A four-week strike in early 1988 and a seven-week strike in 1989 contributed to the low harvests. Third, plant diseases and adverse weather plagued sugar crops. After disease wiped out much of the sugarcane crop in the early 1980s, farmers switched to a disease-resistant but less productive variety. Extreme weather in the form of both droughts and floods, especially in 1988, also led to smaller harvests.
The extent of Guyana's economic decline in the 1980s was clearly reflected in the performance of the sugar sector. Production levels were halved, from 324,000 tons in 1978 to 168,000 tons in 1988.