ABSTRACT
Agriculture has traditionally been the mainstay of the economy. The main problem of the agricultural sector in Guyana is not essentially one of land hunger, as only 1% of the territory is cultivated. There are urgent and multiple challenges for the agricultural sector. These relate both to the needs of the agricultural sector itself and because the whole land use system of the densely populated coastal zone is constructed around the network of dykes which are everyone’s front yard in Guyana. The heavy agricultural chemical inputs of fertilizers, pesticides, is of major concern. There is evidence that chemicals are used in an indiscriminate manner. Fishing has traditionally played an important role in the economic life of the predominantly coastal population. A number of possible reasons have been put forward for decline in the shrimp catch beyond overfishing. In the 1980s there was a terribly wasteful practice of throwing the “by-catch” brought up with the shrimp fishing back into the ocean.
