With the rampaging COVID-19 having quite possibly snuffed out the entrepreneurial ambitions of large numbers of Guyana’s emerging agro-processors and seriously dimmed the enthusiasm of a great many more, twenty-two-year-old Kelshine Griffith who was named the Stabroek Business’ Agro Processor of the Year at the end of 2019 has an impressive grasp of the situation. While she believes that nothing could have been done to ‘dodge the bullet’ of COVID-19, she cites what she believes has been the protracted ignoring by the state of the implementation of policies and initiatives that could have found small agro-processors in a much stronger position than that in which they find themselves today. Her particular peeve, she says, is what has been the yawning gap between the official rhetoric towards growing the agro-business sector and the glaring deficiencies that inform the reality.
In vigorously pointing to the vulnerability of hundreds of small agro-processing operations and what she now believes is the considerable possibility of their permanent disappearance, she believes that government must ‘take it on the chin’ for the present state of affairs.
The agro-processing graduate of the Guyana School of Agriculture who says she is determined to battle for the survival of her own modest enterprise, Shine Manufacturing – which produces a sweet potato cake mix – told the Stabroek Business during an interview earlier this week that the small players in the local agro-processing industry were “not really properly equipped” to cope with the pressures of what now appears to be the worsening pandemic. “The people who have to struggle every day to keep their businesses going have not been given a suitable opportunity to ‘stay in the game,” she posited.
Like many of the other investors in the agro-processing sector, Kelshine runs a modest operation which relies heavily on sales turnover to keep her enterprise ‘up and running’. What makes the survivability of her enterprise even more precarious is that she is heavily dependent on a number of factors that lie outside of her control; from the acquisition of sweet potatoes, her primary raw material, to accessing processing and packaging facilities in order to have her product ready for market. For the acquisition of sweet potato she must engage in what can be tough negotiations with one farmer or another, which often begins at the sweet potato cultivation stage. Where manufacturing is concerned she is entirely dependent on the agro-processing facilities available at the Guyana School of Agriculture. “There is really no reliable support for small agro-processors in those important aspects of the production process. Government can change that by making lands available to agro-processors wanting to produce their own raw materials. They can also invest in setting up a factory and make it available to small agro- processors at a fee … a kind of startup support facility. Too many agro-processors are still confined to using our kitchens to do things that should be done in a factory. These things have all been talked about but they have not been done,” Kelshine told Stabroek Business. “If government continually makes noises about the potential of small agro-processors to help reduce poverty, it needs to back up what it says through actions that will build the sector,” Kelshine asserted. “It mustn’t only be talk. If the support had been there, small-scale agro-processing could have been doing better even in the present coronavirus environment,” Kelshine says.
With small operators having made what she believes have been “impressive” strides in improving their packaging and labelling standards, Kelshine contends that there really ought to be a production facility to which micro and small businesses in the sector can go to get their packaging and labelling done to a high standard and at competitive prices. Up until now this has not been done.
Conceding that she may well be afflicted by the impatience of youth, Kelshine says that she believes that where providing opportunities for local small businesses is concerned, the state simply has to do more. “Small businesses are desperate to grow but they are not getting the kind of official support that is necessary. That is the simple truth,” she avers.
When we asked her about access to startup and other forms of support financing, Kelshine paused, inhaling deeply before she proffered an answer. “Small businesses very often need a lot of startup help over a period of time. They don’t have the stamina to last without that help. I believe that the Small Business Bureau is an excellent idea and that is why so many small businesses joined up. However, one-off grants of $200,000 won’t do. That is nowhere near enough to keep most types of small business going in a situation like what we are facing now.” She believes that the Bureau has to constantly challenge itself to find ways of supporting small businesses in the absence of adequate support funding.
Convinced that much of the country’s agro-produce may now be ready to compete on the international market, Kelshine says that far too few opportunities are being created for the country’s agro-produce to have access to the international market. “Here again, these things are talked about but the opportunities are not there. Travelling to international trade fairs to market your goods takes the kind of money that small businesses cannot afford. Where in Guyana can I find an organisation that is responsible for the promotion of local products in overseas markets and nothing else? There is no such place anywhere in the country.”
Kelshine argues that the limited official support that has been forthcoming for micro and small businesses over the years has contributed to keeping unemployment high and that government is largely answerable for this. “It is not true that people just want to live on handouts. There is a lot of energy and creativity around but there is need for support, real support. When you look back there is a lot that could have been done that wasn’t done,” she says.
Asked about the likely long-term impact of COVID-19 on the survivability of small agro-processing operations, Kelshine says she believes that there is likely to be some losses. “A lot of agro-processing businesses are probably not strong enough to withstand this kind of pressure… and we have no idea as to how long this will last. Up until now there has not been a great deal of support coming from government. Because I am in agro- processing I can tell you things about the toughness of people who run small businesses that would amaze you. Pride will cause them not to want to give up, but then you can only hold out for so long. Speaking for myself, I’m still hanging in there. I have dreams and ambitions for what I do.” Afterwards, she provides an abbreviated version of the mind-boggling effort into which she has thrown herself to produce a batch of her sweet potato cake mix to supply to her distributors, including the GMC’s Guyana Shop and Bounty Supermarkets, both of which establishments have continued to back her product… it is quite a story.
