Smart Farming for Sustainable Development in Guyana: Precision Ag, Al and IoT (IADB-GY-T1211)

Regions
  • Latin America and Caribbean
Geographic location where the impacts of the investment may be experienced.
Countries
  • Guyana
Geographic location where the impacts of the investment may be experienced.
Financial Institutions
  • Inter-American Development Bank (IADB)
International, regional and national development finance institutions. Many of these banks have a public interest mission, such as poverty reduction.
Project Status
Approved
Stage of the project cycle. Stages vary by development bank and can include: pending, approval, implementation, and closed or completed.
Bank Risk Rating
B
Environmental and social categorization assessed by the development bank as a measure of the planned project’s environmental and social impacts. A higher risk rating may require more due diligence to limit or avoid harm to people and the environment. For example, "A" or "B" are risk categories where "A" represents the highest amount of risk. Results will include projects that specifically recorded a rating, all other projects are marked ‘U’ for "Undisclosed."
Voting Date
Dec 6, 2025
Date when project documentation and funding is reviewed by the Board for consideration and approval. Some development banks will state a "board date" or "decision date." When funding approval is obtained, the legal documents are accepted and signed, the implementation phase begins.
Borrower
The University of Guyana - Institute of Food and Nutrition Security
A public entity (government or state-owned) provided with funds or financial support to manage and/or implement a project.
Sectors
  • Agriculture and Forestry
  • Education and Health
The service or industry focus of the investment. A project can have several sectors.
Investment Type(s)
Advisory Services
The categories of the bank investment: loan, grant, guarantee, technical assistance, advisory services, equity and fund.
Investment Amount (USD)
$ 0.50 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Project Cost (USD)
$ 1.43 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Bank Documents
Primary Source

Original disclosure @ IADB website

Updated in EWS Dec 11, 2025

Disclosed by Bank Oct 1, 2026

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Project Description
If provided by the financial institution, the Early Warning System Team writes a short summary describing the purported development objective of the project and project components. Review the complete project documentation for a detailed description.

According to the IADB, the objective of this technical cooperation is to improve the productivity, climate resilience, and environmental sustainability of smallholder agriculture in Guyana's Amazon Basin by implementing precision agriculture and climate-smart technologies, strengthening technical and entrepreneurial capacities, and promoting bioeconomy practices that support the sustainable use of natural resources and contribute to greenhouse gas emission reductions.

The Smart Farming for Sustainable Development initiative integrates precision agriculture, climate-smart technologies, capacity building, and bioeconomy practices to foster sustainability, productivity, and economic resilience, particularly for smallholder farmers.

The approach focuses on three key components:

  • Component 1: Precision Agriculture with Climate/Smart technologies. The aim of this component is to increase agricultural productivity and reduce environmental degradation through the adoption of precision agriculture technologies.
  • Component 2: Capacity Building and Training. This component aims to strengthen the technical capacities of smallholder farmers and local institutions to adopt and sustain climate-smart agricultural practices.
  • Component 3: Integration of Bioeconomy Practices and Value Chain Strengthening. The component will promote sustainable agricultural practices through bioeconomic models and strengthen value chains for biodiversity-friendly products targeting Guyana’s Amazon Basin region, particularly Region 8.

The project directly benefits 25,000 smallholder farmers, and indigenous communities in regions 1, 2, 7, 8, and 9. These includes indigenous peoples, Afro-descendant, women, and youth, ensuring an inclusive approach to capacity building and technology adoption. The average size of each individual farm of the smallholders targeted is under 4 hectares. The indigenous peoples and afro-descendants comprise 56.3 % of the population in the project area.

Investment Description
Here you can find a list of individual development financial institutions that finance the project.
Private Actors Description
A Private Actor is a non-governmental body or entity that is the borrower or client of a development project, which can include corporations, private equity and banks. This describes the private actors and their roles in relation to the project, when private actor information is disclosed or has been further researched.

As stated by the IADB, the University of Guyana stands as the most suitable executing agency for the smart farming project, owing to its eminent academic reputation and robust institutional framework. It is the premiere educational training institution in Guyana, and as such it provides exclusively, the accredited professional workforce needs for the country. Central to this endeavor is the Institute of Food and Security within the university (IFANS), a beacon of excellence in agricultural sciences. The Institute plays a pivotal role by providing cutting-edge research, fostering collaborations with global experts, and developing technologies that enhance food security and agricultural productivity. Its interdisciplinary team of scientists, agronomists, and technologists is dedicated to advancing smart farming techniques, ensuring that the project benefits from the latest advancements in the field. It boasts a distinguished faculty of 16 well-proven and highly experienced international, regional, and local scientists. Over the last two years, the Institute has generated over USD 30 million dollars in grant-funding proposals for its work.


Contact Information
This section aims to support the local communities and local CSO to get to know which stakeholders are involved in a project with their roles and responsibilities. If available, there may be a complaint office for the respective bank which operates independently to receive and determine violations in policy and practice. Independent Accountability Mechanisms receive and respond to complaints. Most Independent Accountability Mechanisms offer two functions for addressing complaints: dispute resolution and compliance review.

No project contacts provided at the time of disclosure.

ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISM OF IADB

The Independent Consultation and Investigation Mechanism (MICI) is the independent complaint mechanism and fact-finding body for people who have been or are likely to be adversely affected by an Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) or Inter-American Investment Corporation (IIC)-funded project. If you submit a complaint to MICI, they may assist you in addressing the problems you raised through a dispute-resolution process with those implementing the project and/or through an investigation to assess whether the IDB or IIC is following its own policies for preventing or mitigating harm to people or the environment. You can submit a complaint by sending an email to MICI@iadb.org. You can learn more about the MICI and how to file a complaint at http://www.iadb.org/en/mici/mici,1752.html (in English) or http://www.iadb.org/es/mici/mici,1752.html (Spanish).

How it works

How it works