A Religious Farming Community Wants More Than 5,000 Hectares in Guyana. Conservationists Are Worried

• A company acting for Mennonite farmers is looking for large tracts of land in Guyana
• It wants plots bigger than 5,000 hectares for soy, corn and livestock
• The Berbice area around Ebini has been identified as a target
• Conservation groups point to deforestation linked to Mennonite settlements in Peru

A company working on behalf of Mennonite farmers has been scouting for large-scale farmland in Guyana, Kaieteur News reported on 29 October 2023. The Mennonites are a Christian religious community known for close-knit farming settlements, and the report said Guyana was now a place where they hoped to acquire land.

The company, Terra Invest Guyana and Suriname, was formed in 2021 and is led by its director, Ruud Souverein. According to the report, it is seeking plots of more than 5,000 hectares, about 12,400 acres, in the Berbice area, particularly around Ebini, in the Upper Demerara-Berbice and East Berbice-Corentyne regions. The plan is to produce soy, corn and other grains, along with meat, chicken and milk.

Souverein told the newspaper that the company was only investigating the possibility of buying land at that stage. He said there was very good agricultural land in Guyana, but that the company had not yet found land on the market at normal international prices. He also said the company had not formally engaged the Guyana government about its plans.

Conservationists were not reassured. The article cited a Pulitzer Center report that Mennonites who settled in two regions of the Peruvian Amazon had deforested more than 4,800 hectares of tropical forest. Ben D’Leon of the Amazon Conservation Team warned: “They’re possibly aiming to use pristine forest to make their agricultural lands.” WWF also cautioned that the community would use the lands for agricultural development, raising the risk of accelerated deforestation and conflict with Indigenous peoples.

The case is an unusual one for the region: here the faith group is not a congregation looking for a building plot, but a religious community seeking thousands of hectares as an agricultural investment. It raises questions that every Caribbean government is now wrestling with, about who is allowed to buy land at scale, on what terms, and with what safeguards for local and Indigenous communities.

Jamaica has its own debates about large land purchases, from bauxite lands to tourism developments to farm leases, and about how much of the island’s agricultural land should go to outside investors. For Jamaicans at home and abroad who hope to buy farmland, the Guyana story is a useful signal: land in the region is being eyed by well-organised buyers with deep pockets, and those wanting a stake in Caribbean agriculture, including churches with idle acreage, should secure clear titles and make their plans before the best land is spoken for.