Looking beyond the formidable challenges posed by the advent of the still rampaging COVID-19, the Guyana Manufacturing & Services Association (GMSA) on Wednes-day joined forces with the office of the Inter-American Develop-ment Bank, the Ministry of Agriculture and various non-state and private sector individuals to stage a historic webinar designed to examine opportunities for ensuring that the country’s agriculture sector loses none of its robustness in the post-COVID environment.
Largely seen as the driving force behind the staging of the landmark event, GMSA President Shyam Nokta kicked off the virtual forum by pointing out that it had had its origins in a recent survey undertaken by the GMSA on the impact of COVID-19 on local businesses and particularly the devastating impact which the pandemic continued to have on local small businesses.
“As a Business Support Organisation, the GMSA recognized that we could not simply continue to wait for this situation to change. We needed to act, to adapt, to be proactive. We also recognized that as a body, primarily focused on value adding, we could not ignore the supply aspect of this important sector,” Nokta declared in an address listened to by participants that included representatives of government and the private sector including officials associated with ongoing oil and gas pursuits in Guyana.
With one of the main challenges to the local productive sector arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic being weaknesses in the supply and availability of materials and produce, Nokta said that the forum had been staged against the backdrop of the need to bring together the “working in agriculture – large and small agro producers and processors, policy makers, donor organizations, and other stakeholders, in Guyana and in the diaspora.”
Interviews with farmers and agro-processors undertaken by the Stabroek Business over the past several weeks have bared increasing concern by business owners over the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic was continuing to have on their businesses and in his address Nokta had said that Wednesday’s webinar had been designed in large measure to respond to those challenges. “As a Business Support Organization, the GMSA recognized that we could not simply continue to wait for this situation to change. We needed to act, to adapt, to be proactive. We also recognized that as a body, primarily focused on value adding, we could not ignore the supply aspect of this important sector – in fact, one of the main challenges to agro-processing has been the ready supply and availability of materials and produce. With this in mind, we felt we need to bring together the key stakeholders working in agriculture – large and small agro producers and processors, policy makers, donor organizations, and other stakeholders, in Guyana and in the diaspora,” the GMSA President said.
Noting that the webinar was being monitored by local representatives of the Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and IICA Nokta noted that the webinar was being staged at a time when many multilateral organizations are likely to be re-looking at their country strategy. “This presents an opportunity to bring into the support programmes priority areas and actions which could come out of today’s session,” he said. Additionally, he noted that “from a private sector perspective, there is renewed interest in agriculture. Businesses in Guyana and overseas, are looking to invest and expand. It is for these reasons that the GMSA, as a leading private sector body, with a majority of our members from the agro-processing sector, seized this opportunity to bring stakeholders together. We recognize that food security is one of the top three global issues today. And it will be in the future,” Nokta added.
In his address to the forum Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha said that both the public and private sectors were struggling to deal with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic primarily on account of “supply chain interruptions and loss of income …” He alluded to a survey carried out by the Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) and CARICOM the findings of which had included the revelation that farmers’ had not only lost between 20% and 50% of their incomes but that they had reportedly been experiencing difficulties in accessing agriculture inputs including seeds and planting materials as well as fertilizer and pesticides as a result of higher than usual prices.
