Having served the country’s agricultural sector as a key market facilitator since 1985, the Guyana Marketing Corporation has continually sought to diversify its relevance to the farming community. Among its most valuable services are the role it plays in seeking to accelerate the export of non-traditional agricultural produce, facilitating local market development, developing and disseminating post-harvest technology, conducting market research and making available market intelligence services to farmers.
General Manager of the GMC Ida Sealey-Adams believes that numbered amongst the critical services provided by the corporation are those post-harvest support services that include moving produce from the farm to the market.
Ida Sealey-Adams
GMC, she believes, has done its fair share to heighten awareness among farmers of the importance of developing efficient means of moving their produce from farm to market. The corporation has invested in plastic crates – as against bags and boxes – in order to limit damage to items. These can be rented from GMC at a monthly rate of fee of $200 per crate.
The GMC’s refrigerated trucks have also proven to be an invaluable resource in keeping farm produce fresh during haulage over long distances though, according to its General Manager, the primary beneficiaries of the trucks at this time are exporters. She is encouraging farmers and distributors who provide services to local consumers to make fuller use of the cold storage facility provided.
Information regarding the use of the refrigerated trucks can be had either online or directly through enquiries with the GMC’s Robb Street office. Haulage costs depend on distance. A trip from Charity to Georgetown will cost the customer $25,000, while the movement of cargo from Timehri to Georgetown it will costs around $11,000 by refrigerated truck. In addition to the haulage costs the customer also has to meet costs associated with river crossings.
That notwithstanding, Sealey-Adams says, the GMC’s charges are competitive compared with other private services. She is seeking to encourage customers to enter into long-term contractual arrangements with the corporation.
Meanwhile, the corporation is also seeking to encourage farmers to form alliances that enable them to take sustained advantage of lucrative markets. It is, she says, a case of them working together to facilitate a sustained supply of one commodity or another to the market.
The GMC’s service to the agricultural sector also includes two packing houses which facilitate the preparation and packaging of commodities for export. Set up in 2001, the central facility is located at Sophia while the second, opened in 2008, is located at Parika.
Fresh produce being prepared for export is taken to one or the other facility for washing, wiping, drying and grading before being packaged for removal. Sealey-Adams says that the service is particularly valued by exporters to regional markets where buyers are concerned about obtaining a consistently high quality of goods. At the packing house the preparation of the produce is done by staff provided by the exporter while the GMC oversees the operation.
Every consignment being prepared for export is overseen by a National Plant Protection Officer from the National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute. The institute inspects the operation and issues a certificate to the exporter verifying that the produce is disease-free.
The GMC also provides coaching to farmers in areas that include sound business practices, sustaining markets, creating production groups and assessing the costs of production. In order to further empower both farmers and consumers the GMC has collaborated with Digicel to develop an Agriculture Market Information System (Text 1010) service which provides marketing information on various agricultural products including the prices of produce across the country. This information helps farmers in their own price-setting exercises. The service also allows local farmers to access prices for several commodities in Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados. The system, the GMC General Manager says, is updated regularly and is frequently used by local farmers, wholesalers and exporters.
While the effectiveness of the GMC’s Guyana Shop may not be reflected in sales’ volumes, its role as a marketing conduit for locally produced manufactured foods, beverages and other products has been significant. The shop receives an average of three new products each month and at the moment around 80 producers display their goods on the shelves.
As of October the shop had 86 products on display including detergents, juices, sauces, seasonings, sweets, snacks, cassava bread and cassreep acquired from producers in most of the country’s administrative regions.
Manager of the Guyana Shop Kevin Macklingam says that around 60 per cent of the visitors to the shop are holidaying Guyanese and visitors to Guyana looking to stock up on local products.
Outside of the Robb Street complex, The Guyana Shop has collaborated with privately-run supermarkets and the Marriott Hotel Guyana Shop corners.
Serving a productive sector which is still underdeveloped in some key respects has not been without challenges for the GMC. Packaging and labelling, particularly, for small and micro producers, are among those challenges. Sealey-Adams says the corporation has been working with producers to ensure that packaging and labelling standards meet consumer expectations. Among other things there is a programme that computes nutrition facts for food products in order to meet labelling requirements. The programme was donated to the GMC by the Guyana Chapter of PROPEL (Promotion of Regional Opportunities for Produce through Enterprises and Linkages) which was funded by the Caribbean Hunger Fund. The service is available to agro-processors and suppliers of packaged fresh produce. Through the corporation’s ongoing engagements with producers of labels and suppliers of packaging materials, agro-processors continue to benefit from the availability of locally and externally-produced packaging material. In this regard, Sealey-Adams notes the collaboration between the GMC and Wieting & Richter Limited to make glass bottles available to local producers.
There are, however, instances of satisfying outcomes resulting from interaction between the GMC and farmers. This year, collaboration among the corporation, a farmer in Region Five and an exporter in Region Four resulted in the shipping to of 3,628 kg of coconuts to Trinidad and Tobago. Aggressive initiatives are also underway to meet the regional demand for pepper.
Arising out of a market study undertaken in Suriname in January this year that included collaboration with the Plant Quarantine Department and other agencies, the way has been paved for the export of oranges to Suriname. Up to this time approximately 7,000 kg of locally grown oranges have been exported to Suriname.
There are other challenges too, like the high cost of product promotion associated with attending trade shows in the region. One such trip for a team of two can cost as much as $1 million. To get around this challenge the GMC must sometimes collaborate with the private sector or secure the support of an international agency. Sealey-Adams believes that local participation at external trade shows is an integral part of the wider process of broadening the market base.
