Five women farmers in Region One Barima/Waini, who have recently taken part in a conference on organic farming, are now ready to put some of what they have learnt to the test and seek certification as organic producers, despite the fact that this would mean breaking ties with centuries old practices such as slash and burn.
The women are Maria D’Andrade, Ann Da Silva and Nakita Rodrigues of Three Brothers Community in the Waini River; Christina James of Hosororo and Norma D’Andrade of Kamwatta, Mabaruma, who said they were proud to be involved in the process of making the area “The Organic Region.”
The women were in Georgetown the week before last to take part in a ‘Women in organic farming conference’ organized by the University of Guyana in conjunction with the donor community. The participants came from various parts of Guyana, as well as Suriname, Belize and Jamaica.
One of the practices the farmers in the region would have to review was that of slash and burn, if they were to be certified as organic farmers, Maria D’Andrade best known as ‘Auntie Phyl’ said. A former teacher at the Santa Rosa Primary School, she explained, “We are accustomed to slash and burn so the new method would be a challenge.”
She is one of the biggest farmers in the Waini River, who plants all types of ground provision but specializes in cassava production and makes casareep and cassava bread sold under the brand name of North West Organic products. These find their way onto the shelves of leading supermarkets, and some of the products are exported overseas.
D’Andrade said that at present, the cassava bread was being exported to Barbados to a homeopathic clinic, which uses cassava as part of a diabetic diet, since she had been told that it was gluten-free and helped control sugar levels in the blood.
Chairman of the Blue Flame Women’s Group, Christina James, told Stabroek News that she now understood the worth of value-added products and the need for certification.
Nakita Rodrigues comes from a large family of twelve who are engaged mainly in the cultivation and marketing of primary crops. They plant cassava, eddoes, plantains and coconut which they sell to hucksters at Kumaka, who then take the produce to Georgetown. With the new experience gained, she feels that like Maria D’Andrade her family could get involved in the production of casareep in a big way.
To get some extra income in their spare time together with some other women, they would go searching in the forests for crabwood oil seeds, sometimes long distances from their farms. They would get on an average 120 pounds under ten trees. The Rodrigues have also cultivated some crabwood trees on their farm. The crabwood oil seed ripens during the May/June and November/ December rainy seasons. They then sell the seeds to Ann Da Silva.
Norma D’Andrade is involved in peanut and ginger cultivation. She has been using synthetic fertilisers among other things, for the peanuts, but the challenge now is to grow both crops organically. She acknowledged it would be difficult, since producing organic fertilizers would require making compost during a process of “conversion.”
At present, Norma D’Andrade works with a women’s group which is informally called the Kamwatta Ladies Backdam Group.
They sell the peanuts and ginger to hucksters at Kumaka in the same way as many other farmers in the area do, but she said there was now an opportunity open to them to produce peanut butter and ginger powder. Owing to the state of the road from Wauna to Kamwatta which made transportation difficult, it would make sense to process the ginger and peanuts in the village and then market them outside as value-added products.
Norma D’Andrade and another woman from the neighbouring community of Wauna will also be involved in an exchange programme with the women of Aranaputa in the Rupununi, where both would observe the work they had done in the cultivation and processing of peanuts.
However, the challenge still remained for her community in terms of the acquisition of mills and other necessary equipment. D’Andrade and the other members of the group at the conference met with Minister of Agriculture Robert Persaud who had promised to assist them in whatever way possible.
Ann Da Silva said she had outlined a number of challenges they faced, including the lack of expertise in making some things, and the need for equipment such as mills and hullers. She said too that flooding was a big problem in the Waini River. She said they had been encouraged by the minister’s pep talk and the fact that he had promised assistance.
Da Silva is involved in the production of crabwood oil. Her husband, who was trained by a UK-based soapmaker in the art of soap-making, works with others in the production of soaps. The Da Silvas are now looking forward to making crabwood candles using the residual waste of the crabwood seeds.
The crabwood oil has a number of therapeutic and other properties. It is expected, for example, that the candles would give off smoke that would act as an insect repellant.
They have also made a cream from crabwood oil which is reported to clear acne, but it is not yet being marketed.
